Until recently, there was no law about dual citizenship stated in the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia. After the new Constitution of the Republic of Armenia passed by a referendum on November 27, there was no longer a ban on dual citizenship. Now it is necessary to regulate the legislation. During the days of the propaganda for the constitutional amendments referendum, ARF members were announcing that they had already made a draft of the law and are ready to propose the draft in case the constitution passes.
Everyone knows what dangers we will face if we do away with the ban on dual citizenship. According to the people against the dual citizenship clause, dual citizenship will endanger the security of the nation and after a while, we will say goodbye to the free and independent Republic of Armenia. However, leader of the ARF National Assembly grouping Levon Mkrtchyan does not agree with this. In his words, dual citizenship protects the interests of the nation and our national security. The only danger that he sees is that “citizens of the Republic of Armenia will be the ones asking for foreign citizenship. This is the political danger, but I don’t think that our people will gather as a whole and ask for that.” Currently, ARF members are researching dual citizenship in the world, after which they will choose the model that “best fits us Armenians”. According to the leader of the ARF grouping of the National Assembly, the responsibilities and rights of dual citizens must be balanced in the dual citizenship bill. “It is obvious that nobody can have the right to vote, be elected and many other rights if he or she does not fulfill his or her responsibilities for our country. Someone who has done little can not get the same rights as someone who has done what he was responsible for,” says L. Mkrtchyan. In general, the most dangerous thing facing Armenian society if the dual citizenship law passes is the fact that Armenian citizens will not be able to form their own authorities. If dual citizens also have the right to vote and be elected, then Armenians living abroad will be the ones forming authorities in Armenia. The number of Diaspora Armenians is so large that that number will play a major role when it comes time for elections. “That issue can be easily solved and I think that we will not face a huge problem,” assured Mr. Mkrtchyan during our interview and added: “In some countries, someone that has a certain position does not have the right to have dual citizenship. For example, the president and ministers can not be dual citizens. But there is no such ban in the legislative field. The limitations are set by censure and taxes.” Mkrtchyan certifies that such limitations must also be set in the Armenian legislation. As to what kind of censure we will have, it will be clear only after passing the bill. However, we must mention that, during an interview with the German “Zueddeutsche Zeitung” newspaper edition a couple of days ago, Minister of Justice of Armenia David Harutyunyan said that it is possible that dual citizens that have lived in Armenia for 6 months will have the right to vote. Yesterday we tried to find out what the leader of the ARF grouping had to say about this: “I am not familiar with what he has said, however, I do believe that 6 months is a very short time and that is not fair. The right to vote and be elected can only be granted if the person has lived in the country for a couple of years. If it is for the National Assembly, I am for extending that time period up to 5 years. If it is for local government, then we can say 2 years,” said Levon Mkrtchyan.
There is one other puzzling issue concerning dual citizenship. Can foreigners, such as Turks, Azeri and others, apply and get Armenian citizenship? According to Levon Mkrtchyan, it turns out that that is possible, if of course the legislations of foreign countries do not have any bans on dual citizenship. In the words of leader of the ARF grouping, the main factor that must be emphasized is the ethnicity factor. “Only Armenians born in Armenia will get dual citizenship easily. As for the rest, there will be a system which is used in the whole world-it will be a very difficult system; there will be many bans, many standards. This is applied in the U.S. and Canada. Getting Armenian citizenship must be a difficult process. The person getting citizenship must be checked,” says Mr. Mkrtchyan. As to what the norms are going to be, Mr. Mkrtchyan did not respond at the moment.
Let’s take into consideration the fact that the dual citizenship clause is not taken out of the Constitutions of Turkey and Azerbaijan. After the dual citizenship law is passed in Armenia, we think that “our centuries old enemies” will be able to come to Armenia freely and demand dual citizenship from Armenia. If that happens, it is interesting to know what the ARF is going to do? And if anyone claims that “he is Armenian by nationality”, how are they going to prove the opposite?