Saturday, September 17, 2011

Albania: Law for nationality change rejected

Law for nationality change rejected
The Constitutional Court rejected the dispositions for changing the nationality in the Civil Registrar.

The Court ruled with six votes in favor and two against for rejecting the disposition of this law, approved in 2009, for the procedures of changing the nationality in the law for the Civil Registrar. Considering the law as illegal, the Constitution Court ruled that it is inconsistent with the term “nationality”.

The appeal at the Constitutional Court was filed by the Courts of Saranda, Shkoder and Permet, which asked the Constitutional Court to declare it as inconsistent. The District Courts declared that the law damaged the Constitutional Principles by obliging the citizens to change their ethnicity.

Based on this law, the courts of the southern Albanian cities have changed thousands of nationalities, from Albanian to Greek. This wave of changes caused the citizens to complain, and the Red and Black Alliance too. During a tour of meetings with the district courts, this law was also opposed by the Vice Chairman of the High Council of Justice, Kreshnik Spahiu.

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