TALLINN - The Estonian Parliament [Riigikogu] discussed on Tuesday the
proposal of the Legal Chancellor to find a solution to the situation that
children of people, who received Estonian citizenship via naturalization, don’t
get automatically Estonian citizenship, Public Broadcasting reports.
The topic has been discussed at the parliament's constitutional committee and
received its support. The problem is that if people who received Estonian
citizenship via naturalization, don’t apply for a residence permit for their
child, a situation emerges that the legal status of the child is undetermined
when the child gets to be 15 years old.
Usually this happens when the parent misleadingly assumes that since they are
Estonian citizen, the child is an Estonian citizen which is not the case. The
Legal Chancellor thus made a proposal that such people could get Estonian
citizenship automatically. There are around 500 such children in Estonia now,
but not all of them could be interested in getting Estonian citizenship.
The government has so far taken a position that if a child has de facto lived in
Estonia for 8 years, then he/she can get Estonian citizenship even if the child
lacks a residence permit due to parents’ mistake. So far there have been 13 such
cases that have found a positive solution. Legal Chancellor said that since he
cannot make a proposal for through revision of citizenship rules, he continues
making proposals case by case.
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