From: thietaniemi@cc.helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet
Subject: Re: Enigmatic double citizenship in ESTONIA
Date: 27 Sep 92 13:51:42 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

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UPDATING AND RECTIFYING THE DATA ON ESTONIAN
DOUBLE CITIZENSHIP - EXCITING, ISN'T IT? >:-(
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(Please, do not think that I ENJOY spending my sundays
this way!)

In article <1992Sep26.165825.19769@enea.se>, sommar@enea.se 
(Erland Sommarskog) writes: 
> However, I think one should not dig into too deep into this
> double citizenship issue. Sweden and several other countries
> do acknowledge double citizenship, but usually not as a flick
> of the impulse, but there has to be special conditions. For
> instance, an immigrant who wants to aquire citizenship in his
> new country, but whose old country refuse him the right to
> renounce his old citizenship.

Right! And indeed, we should not dwell on this much longer...
 
> In case of the Russians in Estonia, there are no special circum-
> stances involved. It is also obvious that they cannot have both 
> Russian and Estonian citizenship. If some few people have
> double loyalties, the state does not crumble, but if some 30-40%
> have citizenship in another state which is a potential enemy
> then things can become quite scary.

I agree 100%.
 
> Incidently, the same argument applies also to the situation
> when there is a similar body of resident non-citizens who are 
> all citizens of a potential enemy.
> Erland Sommarskog 

Here, I agree 110%!

But, I must still update the information I have given on the double
citizenship issue. It was not totally correct. I list my brand-new
information I got from Estonia by phone today... Please, make
a consistent whole of it, if you please - I am no jurist by schooling!

- The contemporary Estonian legislation (1992) rules out the possibility of
a double citizenship. There will not be any such things in the future.

- Anyone holding an office in Estonia can not have a double citizenship.
One must give the other one up.

- The Estonian 1938 constitution did not allow a double citizenship.

- However, the refugee government of Rei (in Stockholm) that considered
itself to have the mandate of the Estonian presidency, declared during the
second world war, that the Estonian (citizen) refugees in exile can
maintain the other citizenship they have got without losing the 
Estonian citizenship.

- At the same time, it was declared that even the descendants of the
refugees do have the citizenship (not just the right to it, as I
mistakenly wrote before).

- The position of the Estonians in exile is still partly unordered.
A Finn living abroad must register him/herself to maintain the
Finnish citizenship. Nevertheless, ESTONIA NEVER HAD ANY LEGISLATION
ON THIS MATTER. (No registration is needed. I just guessed wrong.)

- This implies, that around the world there exists an undefined amount
of "Estonian citizens" (about 100 000, but no one knows for sure) that
were entitled to vote in the previous elections (because of the decision
made by the refugee government in Stockholm).

- 8.500 of them used their right to vote. The Estonian elections were
organized in countries that allowed it (like in Canada, Sweden and Russia)
but not in countries that have prohibited "foreign" elections
(as Germany and Switzerland).
45 Estonian citizens even casted their ballot in Moscow.

- I did not know that the people that are not permanent residents
of Estonia could vote in the previous elections: I had read from
Estonian newspapers that the Estonian supreme soviet took these
people away their voting rights in June (which was correct: that really
happened). According to my opinion, it was a wise decision.

- What I did not know, was the fact that the supreme soviet cancelled
it's decision in July/August. The reason was that the Congress of Estonia
had declared this decision to be "unconstitutional". Well, the Estonians
keep quarreling over this....

- Accordingly, even the daughter of professor Taagepera could vote
in the previous elections. It happened this way:
     She had a double Canadian/Estonian citizenship. She flew to Tartu 
     and visited the town hall office and declared that she wanted to
     vote in the upcoming elections. With documents, she proved that
     her father was an Estonian citizen (the magistrates have the records
     on the citizens of the Estonian republic (1918-1940). Consequently
     she got a documentation that she is an Estonian citizen and is
     entitled to vote (So, some kind of registration was required.).

-But only 8.500 Estonians (and here I suppose they really were ethnic
Estonians) used this right.

- At the same time, about the same amount of ethnic Russians that are
Estonian citizens voted in the elections. The correspondent of Izvestiya
even wrote that 10.000 "Russians" voted 20.09. But, since Estonian republic
has no ethnic control in elections, we might never know the actual
figure. The correspondent had only extrapolated the percentage
of Russian speaking citizens in Estonia 1938 to the contemporary 
conditions. I have reasons to suppose that 10.000 must be too great 
a figure...

Well, when I promised to check the facts, I had to keep my promise.

with the best regards
the observer
Tapani Hietaniemi, University of Helsinki
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet