Poroshenko introduced in Parliament a bill to ban dual citizenship
KIEV, March 13. /TASS/. President Petro Poroshenko submitted to the Parliament for urgent consideration of the bill on amendments to the law “On citizenship of Ukraine”. This was reported Monday on the website of the Parliament.
“The presidential draft law on amendments to the law “On citizenship of Ukraine” regarding implementation of the right to change citizenship was registered in the Verkhovna Rada under No. 6175 dated 13 March 2017″, — stated in the message.
The bill defines the President as urgent and submitted to the leadership of the Parliament. While the project document and explanatory note to it are missing.
The President’s representative in the Verkhovna Rada Arthur Gerasimov said that “this law (prohibition of dual citizenship) clarified the grounds for loss of Ukrainian citizenship”. “For example, such a base will now be considered the situation when a person who has voluntarily acquired the citizenship of another country, not handed the Ukrainian passport or upon acquisition of citizenship of Ukraine within a certain period of time has not handed over the passport of another country,” said Gerasimov.
He said that the innovation comes to the situation with Ukrainian citizens in Crimea, because there is, in his words, “we are talking about voluntary acquisition of citizenship of the Russian Federation”.
Deputies of a draft law
In his turn speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Andrei Parubiy said that in the Parliament are also working on a bill to ban dual citizenship for top officials. “The working group is finalizing an appropriate draft law. It will be identified as urgent,” — told reporters the head of the Parliament.
In Ukraine, the issue of dual citizenship politicians raise for a long time. But especially sharply it originated after March 6, the court found that the head of the fiscal Department of the country of the Roman Nasirov has British citizenship. Detectives of the National anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special anti-corruption Prosecutor’s office (SAP) Nasirov accused in abuse of office that led to serious consequences. The court arrested the head of the State fiscal service of two months.
Earlier, the former Governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, businessman Igor Kolomoisky said that he had triple citizenship. The oligarch admitted that in addition to Ukrainian passport he has more Israeli and Cypriot. The question, as is consistent with the laws of Ukraine, he joked: “the Constitution says that the law prohibits double citizenship but triple is not prohibited.”
Commenting on the draft law Poroshenko on banning dual citizenship, ex-MP, a well-known lawyer Olena Lukash sarcastically asked how does this link with dual citizenship of former foreign Ministers. “And what about all those yares’ky, Saakashvili Dekanoidze and other Abramoviches? They had to have passports of other countries, and the rest not?” — wrote Lucas in Facebook.
However, she recalled that article 25 of the Constitution says: “a Citizen of Ukraine may not be deprived of citizenship and the right to change citizenship”.