Adopted orphan refused Estonian citizenship
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From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 10:56:37 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: Adopted orphan refused Estonian citizenship
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Nadezda Smeritsevskaja <[email protected]>
Adopted orphan refused Estonian citizenship
Recently the attention of the public in Estonia was drawn to the
scandal concerning the refusal to grant Estonian citizenship to a
three-year old child.
Estonian citizens, the couple living in Kohtla-Jarve has adopted this
summer a three-year girl from orphanage. They decided to submit an
application for Estonian citizenship to their child. However,
Citizenship and Migration Board (CMB) of Estonia refused to grant the
child Estonian citizenship on the basis that biological mother of the
girl was not an Estonian citizen at the moment of birth of the child.
The officials of the CMB advised new parents apply for citizenship
through naturalization. However, the process of naturalization takes
in Estonia at least 1,5 year. From the point of view of parents, such
a long expectation is unacceptable for their daughter.
The issue of the problem is that the girl is not a foundling and her
biological parents are not citizens of Estonia. The girl would acquire
the Estonian citizenship by birth, if she was found on the street. In
accordance with the Estonian legislation, first of all the adoptive
parents have to apply for a residence permit for their daughter.
Besides, earlier the girl has resided in Estonia without any legal
status living at the orphanage, which is supported by the state.
The Estonian Constitution provides that every child with at least one
parent who is an Estonian citizen shall has the right to Estonian
citizenship by birth. The Law on Citizenship in turn envisages that
Estonian citizenship shall be acquired by birth by any child of whose
parents at least one is an Estonian citizen at the time of the child's
birth. According to the Law on Family, adoptive parents are recognized
as parents, they are full-fledged parents and their names are written
down in a birth certificate of an adopted child. The last law does not
make distinctions in rights between biological and adoptive parents.
Minister of Internal Affairs of Estonia noted in mass media that "in
this case we deal with the problem of interpretation of Estonian Law
on Family and Law on Citizenship". The Minister added that Estonian
Law on Citizenship did not allow granting Estonian citizenship to an
adopted child automatically and there was no violation of human rights
from the side of CMB officials.
Alongside with it, the Minister for Interethnic Affairs Ms. Katrin
Saks proposed the Government to initiate an amendment to the Law on
Citizenship in order to resolve such problems, but unfortunately her
proposal did not find any support among governing coalition. The
ideologist of the citizenship policy in Estonia MP Mart Nutt said that
current regulations were quite normal, because otherwise there might
be a danger when people have a dual citizenship.
The couple from Kohtla-Jarve who have applied for citizenship to their
adopted daughter and encountered the bureaucrats' refusal, is going to
sue Estonia in the European Court of Human Rights. At the same time
they decided to submit application for a Russian citizenship for their
daughter.
Nadezda Smeritsevskaja
Legal Information Centre for Human Rights
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