Citizenship Law
Citizenship law (or Citizenship Laws or Citizenship Laws) is the law of every state, in whose jurisdiction on the one hand the rights and obligations of citizenship are defined and on the other the way in which a person acquires and loses citizenship.
A person who is not a citizen of a country is generally described as a stranger, or as stated in the laws, a foreigner. Someone who does not have a recognized nationality is considered as a stateless person. Under ordinary international law, every sovereign state has the right to determine who will be recognized as a national and who is a citizen. Such definitions may be based on customary law, laws, cases or a combination thereof.
Citizenship law is based on either the law of the land (jus soli), or the law of blood (jus sanguinis), or a combination of the two, or even on the basis of marriage. Land law is the principle according to which a child born in the territory of a state acquires the citizenship of that state. The Law of Blood (or the Law of Origin or the Law of Kinship) is the principle on the basis of which a person acquires the citizenship of their parents. Today, most if not all countries have a combination of these two principles: neither granting citizenship to all those born in the country, nor denying citizenship to children born abroad.
In our country, jus soli prevails, without exceptions being ruled out. Law 4735/2020 made significant changes in the process of obtaining Greek citizenship with effect from April 1, 2021 and gave the opportunity to citizens of other countries who meet certain conditions to naturalize as Greek citizens. The conditions, therefore, for acquiring Greek citizenship are the following:
- Be an adult at the time of filing the naturalization declaration.
- Not to have been irrevocably convicted for an offense committed intentionally, during the last 10 years before the submission of the naturalization application to a sentence of more than 1 year.
- Not to have been irrevocably sentenced to imprisonment for more than 6 months, regardless of the time of issuance of the conviction sentence, for one of the following crimes:
Intentional homicide and dangerous bodily harm,
- the drug law,
- money laundering,
- currency crimes,
- child prostitution and pornography, child trafficking, child abduction,
- forming or joining a criminal or terrorist organization,
- resistance against the principle,
- crimes against sexual freedom and economic exploitation of sexual life,
- theft, robbery, fraud, embezzlement, extortion, usury
- forgery, false certificate, robbery false certificate,defamation,
- smuggling, weapons crimes, antiquities,
- illegal immigration
- Not to be deported or other pending the status of his legal residence in the State.
- To reside legally in Greece for consecutive years before submitting the naturalization application.
