Jordanian nationality law

Jordanian nationality law is the law governing the acquisition, transmission and loss of Jordanian citizenship. Jordanian citizenship is the status of being a citizen of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and it can be obtained by birth, marriage or naturalization.
Jordanian nationality is governed by Law No 6 of 1954 on Nationality, also known as the Jordanian Nationality Law, 1954, which was last amended in 1987. The law is administered by the Civil Status and Passports Department (CSPD), which is part of the Ministry of Interior.
Terminology
The distinction between the meaning of the terms citizenship and nationality is not always clear in the English language and differs by country. Generally, nationality refers a person's legal belonging to a state and is the common term used in international treaties when referring to members of a state; citizenship refers to the set of rights and duties a person has in that nation.
In the Jordanian context, the term "nationality" (jinsiyya) is used to refer to legal state membership, while "citizenship" (muwaatina) describes the relationship a person has with the state. Citizenship includes nationality but also involves other legal statues, civil rights, or political affiliations an individual might have.
History
National status under British mandate
The region of Transjordan was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. Accordingly, Ottoman nationality law applied to the area. Transjordan was governed by the Ottomans for four centuries until the 1916–1918 Arab Revolt during the First World War. The area nominally remained an Ottoman territory following the conclusion of the war until 1922, when the United Kingdom obtained a League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, which included Transjordan. Similarly, local residents ostensibly continued their status as Ottoman subjects. The terms of the Mandate allowed Britain to exclude its application on certain parts of the region; this was exercised on the Mandate territory east of the Jordan River, where the Emirate of Transjordan was established.
The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne established the basis for separate nationalities in Transjordan and all other territories ceded by the Ottoman Empire. The Nationality Law of 1928 confirmed the transition from Ottoman/Turkish to Transjordanian nationality in local legislation; all Ottoman/Turkish subjects who were resident for at least 12 months in Transjordan on 6 August 1924 became Transjordanian nationals on 1 May 1928. Ottoman subjects born in Transjordan who had submitted applications to become Transjordanian before 6 August 1926 could acquire that nationality subject to discretionary approval. Foreigners could naturalize as Transjordanian nationals after residing in the territory for at least two years preceding an application, demonstrating proficiency in Arabic, affirming their intention to permanently reside in Transjordan, and satisfying a good character requirement.
Individuals who acquired foreign citizenship automatically lost Transjordanian nationality, as well as any person who joined a foreign military without government approval. Children of a Transjordanian father automatically held Transjordanian nationality, and minor children likewise lost that nationality if their fathers ceased to hold that status. At age 18, they had the option of resuming Transjordanian nationality within two years. Any person who acquired Transjordanian nationality by birth could also voluntarily relinquish that status within one year of reaching the age of majority.
Standard regulations in the British Empire at the time strictly complied with the doctrine of coverture, where a woman's consent to marry a foreigner was also assumed to be intent to denaturalize. The 1928 Nationality Law mirrored this in Transjordanian nationality law; Transjordanian women who married foreign men automatically lost their Transjordanian nationality and foreign women who married Transjordanian men automatically became Transjordanian nationals. There were two exceptions to this: wives who had acquired or lost Transjordanian nationality through their marriage could elect to relinquish or reacquire that status within two years of their husbands' deaths or if they had ceased to be married.
Despite Britain's role in representing Transjordan internationally and its responsibility for territorial defense, domestic law treated the protectorate as foreign territory. Transjordanian nationals were treated as British protected persons, rather than British subjects, meaning that they were aliens in the United Kingdom. Protected persons could not travel to the UK without first requesting permission, but were afforded the same consular protection as British subjects when travelling outside of the British Empire.
Disengagement from the West Bank
Many Palestine refugees obtained Jordanian nationality on the basis of Law No 6 of 1954 on Nationality which classifies as Jordanian nationals “any person who, not being Jewish, possessed Palestinian nationality before 15 May 1948 and was a regular resident in [Jordan] between 20 December 1949 and 16 February 1954”.
Jordan relinquished its claim to the West Bank in 1988, after which and especially in the 2000s, the Jordanian government has been arbitrarily and without notice withdrawing Jordanian nationality from Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin, making them stateless. As Human Rights Watch has stated, this is in direct violation of Jordan's nationality law, which provides that non-Jewish Palestinian residents in 1949 or thereafter received full Jordanian nationality following Jordan's incorporation of the West Bank in April 1950.
Palestinians who moved from the West Bank (whether refugees or not) to Jordan, are issued yellow-ID cards to distinguish them from the Palestinians of the "official 10 refugee camps" in Jordan. From 1988 to 2012, thousands of those yellow-ID card Palestinians had their Jordanian citizenship revoked. Jordan's Interior Minister Nayef al-Kadi said:
"Our goal is to prevent Israel from emptying the Palestinian territories of their original inhabitants," the minister explained, confirming that the kingdom had begun revoking the citizenship of Palestinians.
"We should be thanked for taking this measure," he said. "We are fulfilling our national duty because Israel wants to expel the Palestinians from their homeland."Demonizing Israel is bad for the Palestinians, by Mudar Zarhan, 01/08/2010, Jerusalem Post
Human Rights Watch estimated that about 2,700 Palestinians were stripped of Jordanian nationality between 2004 and 2008. It is estimated that over 40,000 Palestinians were affected by this policy.
The Jordanian government has said that these actions are akin to those of other Arab nations with the intention of helping Jordanians of Palestinian descent by requiring those who fled the West Bank or Jerusalem after the war in 1967 to keep their Israeli documents valid since the Israeli government continues to shift further right-wing under the leadership of its conservative foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman. Nabil Sharif, the former minister of state for media affairs and Jordanian ambassador to Morocco, said:
In 2012, the Jordanian government promised to stop revoking the citizenship of Palestinians, and restored citizenship to 4,500 Palestinians who had previously lost it.
However, many have criticized the actions of the Jordanian government as an underhanded move to preserve the government's own interest by trying to appease non-Palestinian Jordanians concerned about the growing economic and political influence of citizens of Palestinian descent, which Nabil Sharif had denied.
Acquisition and loss of nationality
Individuals born to a Jordanian father are automatically Jordanian nationals at birth regardless of birthplace. The status is not transferrable by descent to children of Jordanian mothers unless the fathers are stateless or their nationalities are unknown. For nationality purposes, Palestinian fathers are never recognized as stateless whether they hold citizenship of any state or not. Abandoned children found in Jordan with unclear parentage are assumed to be Jordanian.
Any person with an Arab father who holds nationality of an Arab League member state is eligible for a grant of citizenship after residing in Jordan for at least 15 years, subject to a recommendation by the Minister of Interior and subsequent approval by the Council of Ministers. All other foreigners may naturalize as Jordanian citizens after residing in the country for at least four years. Applicants must demonstrate proficiency in the Arabic language, fulfill a good character requirement, show intent to permanently reside in Jordan, and hold positions in occupations that do not compete with Jordanians. Naturalized persons who lost Jordanian nationality after acquiring foreign citizenship before 1987 are prohibited from regaining Jordanian nationality.
Nationality by marriage
A foreign woman who marries a Jordanian national can apply to acquire Jordanian citizenship:
after three years of her marriage if she is an Arab,
after five years of her marriage if she is not an Arab.
A Jordanian woman who marries a non-Jordanian and acquires the nationality of her husband may retain her Jordanian nationality unless she renounces it.
A foreign man married to a Jordanian national does not acquire Jordanian citizenship by virtue of being married to a Jordanian national.
Since 2010, there has been an increasing public demand for giving the opportunity for Jordanian women to be able to transmit Jordanian nationality to their husbands.
Status of children of Jordanian women married to foreigners
Since 2010, there has been an increasing public demand for Jordanian women to have the ability to transmit Jordanian nationality to their children and also to their husbands. In recent years, growing domestic pressures and foreign concerns have demanded the Jordanian government grant civil rights to the children of Jordanian women married to foreigners, including the right to receive treatment in hospitals affiliated with the Ministry of Health, the right to obtain residency permits and the right to education in public schools and universities. This is in addition to their right to work, obtain driver’s licenses and perhaps grant them ordinary passports (without a national number) to facilitate their travel outside the country.
On 7 September 2014, amidst growing public outcry and pressures from foreign leaders such as the United States Secretary of State John Kerry, Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour announced the government's approval to grant children of Jordanian women married to foreigners certain privileges and facilities to ease their lives within Jordan.
As of January 2015, there were 88,983 Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians and these families had 355,932 children registered with the CSPD. The regulations were issued on 4 January 2015 and, by the end of the month, the Civil Status and Passports Department (CSPD) had received 9,741 applications to issue special identification cards for children of Jordanian women married to foreigners. Marwan Qteishat, director of the CSPD, told The Jordan Times near the end of January 2015 that they had issued 965 identification cards and processed 2,148 applications.
See also
Visa policy of Jordan
Visa requirements for Jordanian citizens
References
Citations
General sources
External links
Law No. 6 of 1954 on Jordanian Nationality
Nationality law
Law of Jordan
Politics of Jordan
Government of Jordan
Human rights in Jordan