3 ms·

A lot of loopholes are like that. They are clearly legal things that you can do added there for a reason a certain expectation of it to not be abused for differ

A lot of loopholes are like that. They are clearly legal things that you can do added there for a reason a certain expectation of it to not be abused for different people purposes. They are of course used for different purposes once the landscape changes to allow so. My favorite legal loophole was in the Ukrainian citizenship law: to naturalize, one has to renounce their previous citizenship(s), but sometimes it's not practically possible to do. When the law was passed, one of legitimate reasons to not follow through with renouncing previous citizenships was "it costs more than X percent of a minimal monthly salary". At some point 30 years later it turns out that, despite X being changed a few times, most the countries that people have to renouncing citizenships of, are falling under this "too expensive" loophole, since minimal monthly salary is a bit of an arbitrary number that a lot of laws refer to and it made sense to have it suppressed. So after kicking the can down the road a few times, the loophole was removed.

em-bee 2y ago
interestingly germany came to the opposite conclusion. many people came from countries that did not allow the renouncement of their citizenship at all. i don't know how big of a factor it was but a year ago the law changed and now germany allows dual citizenship.
- gambiting 2y ago
  Was it? It was a big(in certain circles) discussion point around Brexit, because Germany does allow dual citizenship but only for citizens of other EU countries. Since UK was about to stop being an EU country, there was a question whether dual British-German citizens would have to renounce one of their citizenships. I'm glad they changed it then.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    strange. to my understanding renouncing your old citizenship was only ever required when you apply for a new citizenship. once you have acquired the new one while keeping the old one you would not even come into a situation where you would be forced to renounce the old one because no one from those two countries would ever ask you. other countries might in their visa applications, but they won't challenge your dual citizenship either. the only exception is if you got both as a child, then when you turn 18 you may still have to choose.
- Muromec 2y ago
  yes, but for that there is (I guess) the standard principle -- it's outside of the control of the person being naturalized, so they have a free pass as long as they pinky-promise to not use the other passport for convenience. Same goes for refugees -- it doesn't make sense to ask a persecuted person to fill all the necessary paperwork with the place that persecuted them. That is standard, but Ukraine also had the procedure cost in that list of exception for political reasons. Nowdays, after the loophole is repealed, the muchhonoured-clearexcelency-mister-chief-of-the-military pushes for some version of dual citizenship where citizens of nice countries can sign a pledge instead of allegiance instead.
Dylan16807 2y ago
> A lot of loopholes are like that. They are clearly legal things that you can do added there for a reason a certain expectation of it to not be abused for different people purposes. They are of course used for different purposes once the landscape changes to allow so. In this case, the threshold has been updated repeatedly while the use was the same as today. It's not a loophole.

em-bee 2y ago

interestingly germany came to the opposite conclusion. many people came from countries that did not allow the renouncement of their citizenship at all. i don't know how big of a factor it was but a year ago the law changed and now germany allows dual citizenship.

gambiting 2y ago
Was it? It was a big(in certain circles) discussion point around Brexit, because Germany does allow dual citizenship but only for citizens of other EU countries. Since UK was about to stop being an EU country, there was a question whether dual British-German citizens would have to renounce one of their citizenships. I'm glad they changed it then.
- em-bee 2y ago
  strange. to my understanding renouncing your old citizenship was only ever required when you apply for a new citizenship. once you have acquired the new one while keeping the old one you would not even come into a situation where you would be forced to renounce the old one because no one from those two countries would ever ask you. other countries might in their visa applications, but they won't challenge your dual citizenship either. the only exception is if you got both as a child, then when you turn 18 you may still have to choose.
Muromec 2y ago
yes, but for that there is (I guess) the standard principle -- it's outside of the control of the person being naturalized, so they have a free pass as long as they pinky-promise to not use the other passport for convenience. Same goes for refugees -- it doesn't make sense to ask a persecuted person to fill all the necessary paperwork with the place that persecuted them. That is standard, but Ukraine also had the procedure cost in that list of exception for political reasons. Nowdays, after the loophole is repealed, the muchhonoured-clearexcelency-mister-chief-of-the-military pushes for some version of dual citizenship where citizens of nice countries can sign a pledge instead of allegiance instead.

Dylan16807 2y ago

> A lot of loopholes are like that. They are clearly legal things that you can do added there for a reason a certain expectation of it to not be abused for different people purposes. They are of course used for different purposes once the landscape changes to allow so. In this case, the threshold has been updated repeatedly while the use was the same as today. It's not a loophole.