Discussions on granting citizenship to foreigners have resumed in Ukraine/Photo courtesy of the author
Can yesterday's Russian become a citizen of Ukraine? And if he condemns the war and personally Putin, but does not know the language and history of Ukraine? Read more in the exclusive blog for Channel 24 website.
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Can a citizen of Ukraine who writes an application for citizenship of another country, having a passport with a trident in his hands? Why is it much easier to get a Ukrainian passport for those who are involved in political elites and at the same time it is difficult for those who are on the periphery?
About who deserves to get citizenship, talks have been going on for a long time. They flare up with renewed vigor when a person with a dubious reputation and motives receives a passport with a trident, or when issues of citizenship are woven into political strife.
Let's try to figure out what citizenship of Ukraine gives? Why are passions constantly raging around him and what should be changed in our laws in order to finally stop the disputes about who and for what to give it, and who not?
What does citizenship give
The modern world is more open than ever before. Millions of people travel between countries every year: some as a tourist, and some in search of better living conditions. A Ukrainian passport is very useful for this. With it you can enter without a visa or with a visa on the spot in 144 countries. In terms of visa-free access, the Ukrainian passport is in 35th place in the Henley & Partners Passport Index.
Another category of people are those who seek asylum in Ukraine and want to stay here. The Constitution of Ukraine guarantees them basic human rights: the opportunity to work, receive medical care and education, regardless of whether you have a Ukrainian passport. As in other democratic states, the state of Ukraine provides economic and social rights to people regardless of citizenship.
Therefore, the value of citizenship is hidden in the exclusive rights of citizens to which foreigners do not have access. Only citizens of Ukraine can participate in the management of state affairs. This possibility is realized in several ways.
The first of them is the election of power through voting in elections. This can only be done by adult citizens of our state. Ukrainians elect the president, people's deputies and local authorities and thus determine who will make decisions on their behalf over the next few years. The elected Verkhovna Rada appoints the prime minister and ministers, therefore, by voting in parliamentary elections, we not only form the composition of the parliament, but also indirectly determine the face of the executive branch.
The second way is to become ourselves power. Only citizens of Ukraine can run for the position of a deputy of the local or Verkhovna Rada, the head of society or even the president. And also take part in competitions for civil service positions.
And there is also the opportunity to make state decisions at all-Ukrainian and local referendums. Only citizens of Ukraine can initiate and participate in them. Therefore, our passport is a kind of pass to the political life of the state.
Elite naturalization
Ukrainian passport, and with it access to the political life of the country in recent years, several people have received, and this has become a serious irritant for society. Not because Ukrainians are against the naturalization of foreigners in general. We are talking about people who very quickly overcome the distance from obtaining a passport with a trident to getting to the highest levels of power.
Vadim Novinsky knows how to do this. In 2012, the then-Russian and one of the richest Ukrainian businessmen received Ukrainian citizenship from the hands of Yanukovych. And a year later he was elected a people's deputy and became one of the old-timers of the Verkhovna Rada.
The next wave of political naturalization came in the years after the Revolution of Dignity. Ukrainian passports, and then ministerial portfolios, were given to Natalia Yaresko, Ulyana Suprun and Aivaras Abromavicius. But the most famous and most scandalous was the granting of citizenship to former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Unlike Vadim Novinsky, a pass to power, which was handed directly to the Ukrainians in the elections, Saakashvili went to the executive branch and became the head of the Odessa Regional State Administration, where he was appointed by President Petro Poroshenko.
The subsequent epic around the Ukrainian passport of Mikheil Saakashvili caused a lot of reputational damage to Ukraine. And she demonstrated that Ukrainian legislation is very far from ideal, when citizenship can not only be given, but also taken away for very formal reasons. For example, because the Migration Service did not seem to know about Saakashvili's criminal record at the time of obtaining citizenship, and later found out and decided that the ex-president of Georgia misled the Ukrainian authorities. Therefore, I decided to take his passport away from him and deport him.
A new spiral of debate about whether or not to grant citizenship for political reasons and to whom has ignited in recent months. First, Volodymyr Zelensky said he was considering granting a Ukrainian passport to a Russian blogger. Alexander Nevzorov, and a few days later there were reports in the media that the Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman could use the same option. This caused a lively controversy in the Ukrainian information space and once again demonstrated the sensitivity of the issue.
What needs to be changed
The change that would remove most of the contradictions could be a revision of the norms of the Constitution regarding who can apply for the highest positions in the country. Now the Basic Law allows you to become a people's choice, provided that the candidate has citizenship, regardless of when he acquired it. At the same time, the Constitution requires that a candidate for deputy must have resided permanently in the territory of the country for at least the last five years, and a presidential candidate for at least the last ten years.
Such a norm in the thirty-first year of independence in the 21st century is archaism. It got into the Constitution only because by the time of its adoption five years had not passed since the date of the declaration of Independence of Ukraine. Therefore, it is impossible to establish the requirement to stay in the citizenship of Ukraine for a long period as a mandatory condition for participation in national elections. Instead, the parents of the Constitution proposed a norm with permanent residence on the territory of Ukraine.
Now there are no objective obstacles not to change this norm by linking access to politics to the period of stay in the citizenship of Ukraine, and not to the time of residence on its territory. After all, for a full-fledged political life, it is important not where you live, but whether you have a stable and long-term legal connection with the state. Thanks to this change, it is possible to prevent the repetition of the story with Vadim Novinsky, who too quickly went through all the steps from a foreigner to a deputy.
Another option is offered by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. In his opinion, the citizenship of Ukraine today is a privilege and therefore everyone who wants to get it should know and understand how our country and its laws work. This is a comprehensive exam for citizenship, which should include checking the level of proficiency in the state language, knowledge of the history of the state and its Constitution.
At the end of July, the government registered a bill that proposes to oblige those wishing to obtain citizenship to take exams on knowledge of the foundations of the Constitution and the history of Ukraine. If the law is adopted, then understanding and communicating in the language will not be enough to obtain a Ukrainian passport. You will have to confirm the level of proficiency in it in accordance with the requirements established by the National Commission for State Language Standards.
The idea is quite correct, because we are talking about knowledge and skills that testify to the basic adaptation of a foreigner to life in Ukrainian society. At the same time, persons who have not shown due interest in the country whose citizens they want to become are eliminated.
There can be many entry barriers to obtaining citizenship. In the post-war years, the issue of the grounds and procedure for acquiring Ukrainian citizenship will become even more relevant. The society will strive to correct the mistakes of the past and protect itself from the penetration of Russians into all spheres of public life, as it was before the war. In addition, the war only exacerbated the demographic catastrophe – both at the expense of those who left the country, and at the expense of those who died at the hands of the enemy, and at the expense of the unborn.
Ukraine will need workers to restore and develop the state. Including migrants. This will inevitably exacerbate disputes about the conditions under which to provide a Ukrainian passport. Therefore, it is better now to change approaches to citizenship so that they correspond to today's challenges and the needs of the coming day.
