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Dual citizens cannot hold offices in Ukraine – Hungarian minority negatively affected?
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Over the past few years, the political relations between Hungary and Ukraine have been declining, but with a new measure, Ukraine might just deprive Hungarian-Ukrainian dual citizens in the Ruthenian Transcarpathia and other parts of Ukraine from taking up government offices and titles.
Telex reports that although the presidential order was officially written on the 26th of February, the Ukrainian government only declared it in the past couple of days. The existing problem is complicated as previously, Ukraine did not officially recognise dual citizenship. Thus, the number and identity of Ukrainian citizens with Hungarian dual citizenship have been kept secret by the Hungarian government.
Over the course of the past few years, there has been hope that the Ukrainian government might fix the issue, but it turns out that quite the opposite is true.
Although it was not directly aimed at the Hungarian minorities living in Ukraine, this decision will affect from 100,000 to somewhere around 130,000 people. Ukraine’s reason for their new law is to thwart any attempts at internal attacks against the sovereignty, independence, home affairs, and the territories of Ukraine, suggesting that the main target were the Russian-Ukrainian dual citizens in Eastern Ukraine. Even though the data is not shared with Ukraine, now the country’s secret service will have a legal basis for investigating people’s dual citizenship.
In reality, in the following months, anyone who has dual citizenship will lose the right to hold:
– public offices– local government positions
– leading positions in state-owned companies with strategic importance
– and to know state-secrets.
So. In our Best Friend country Poland (significant German minority, anyone), some posts in the executive and judicial branch are already covered by the prohibition of dual nationality. Example: the chiefs of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) and the National Remembrance Institute (IPN), as well as prosecutors and judges, cannot hold dual nationality.
At some point (was it just before COVID? Priorities!) the Law and Justice (PiS) senators on the Human Rights and Rule of Law Committee of the Polish Senate (upper chamber of Parliament) considered a petition to debar people with dual nationality from becoming public officials such as MPs, ministers or mayors. They actually requested ministries provide the committee with information on how many public officials have dual nationality… Good question where that went – appears Ukraine is by no means unique. If anyone can be bothered, I believe Slovakia is also pretty tough on dual nationality…
Last but not least, as soon as you’re on a public roster and need to apply for security clearance, you WILL need to disclose dual nationality (this is anywhere on the planet) and things could get interesting, very quickly.