Currently Dutch politicians are considering the Dutch nationality law and the Tjebbes case EU proportionality test implementation into the law, 35 859 (R2157). Dutch Secretary of State for Justice and Security, Ankie Broekers-Knol, who has seen quite a few morality challenges in her recent career, has proposed to do the absolute minimum required by the court verdicts and directives given. _{(See previous news 1, 2, external 1)}

The minimum was interpreted in such a way that in the future this could be challenged in court as well. So, Habsburg Legal Services ltd in an effort to reduce the amount of its clients would like to follow suit and join the Mrs Broekers-Knol in the very minimum we can do. Rather than modernising the whole law, as we ideally would love to see, we put in a proposal which is minimal but unlike the current proposal still reasonable. If implemented the government would suddenly have a lot less effort and budget going to court cases, applications, appeals, review and administrative processes. Saving the tax payer money and we would lose the majority of our clients, a win win for our (potential) clients.

The current proposal from Mrs Broekers-Knol is to introduce another kind of exception in the Dutch nationality law. A law which is already regarded as a very complex one due to the many conditional exceptions and exceptions on exceptions. So complex that lots of officials often make errors and give incorrect or incomplete advice to citizens. With even a professor calling the current Dutch nationality law a monstrosity. Rather than avoiding disproportionate loss the proposal only allows for a restrictive method to correct. What is almost unique is that the correction is retrospective. Thus, when approved the person gets the nationality back as if never lost. The reader may be interested to know that people don’t need to await the change of law to make use of this possibility.

How this is proposed to be written into law creates added procedures and another burden on the justice and foreign affairs departments who need to deal with these applications. In addition, the current proposal does not apply to all former Dutch nationals, but only those who were making use, or wanted to make use, of their European Union rights. Almost all political parties, the Dutch Council of State and the permanent Commission for Justice and Security, advised Mrs Broekers-Knol, against excluding other former Dutch nationals. To date she has ignored this and stated that this is not within the scope of this exercise.

Our own simple and minimalistic proposal.

Reduce some of the current conditions in law and don’t add unnecessary additional articles and conditional exceptions. This can be done by a few small changes in the Dutch nationality law.

As you can see, by deleting some of the conditions, any former Dutch national, with or without having used their EU rights, or having wanted to, can upon these changes get their nationality easily back. This is in line with the court verdicts minimum requirements and avoids administrative processes of reviewing proportionality. This is also in line with previous versions of the Dutch nationality law, when getting the nationality back wasn’t that difficult. Only the retrospective aspect required another paragraph (lid) to be added.

We included the exception of Article 14 which refers mainly to those whose nationality was taken away due to war, terrorism, criminality or fraudulent naturalisation. Article 15 paragraph 1d and 1e are also excluded as this refers to those who sort of did not complete the naturalisation process correctly.

More is possible!
Please, a reminder that this is a minimal change which would be welcomed in any case. Ideally the whole law is simplified and allows dual nationality for ordinary citizens. Dual nationality is a positive right that benefits individuals, families and society, the state. It is very understandable that there are and will be some restrictions where it comes to war, terrorism or criminality. If anyone in poltics or government wants to discuss abolishing the loss of nationality through articles 15 for adults and 16 for minors we keep ourselves available.

The Plight of Thousands of Former Dutch Citizens

There are thousands of former Dutch nationals who without realising it lost their Dutch nationality. They didn’t just chose for this, they were caught out. The fact that they work, live, love or were born in an ever more global and international community resulted in them being cast out. It is not something of the past, every day we get reports of people being victimised and caught out. The current Dutch law makes it practically impossible for many to correct this. Former Dutch nationals are just foreigners. While the nationality law makes return of the nationality possible after a year of residency the immigration law restricts entry. There are immigration routes for former Dutch nationals but over time these have seen the introduction of restrictions and higher immigration fees. The restrictive attitude does not consider links with family, culture, etc. There is little to no proportionality in application of the laws.

Where the Dutch nationality law previously had easy possibilities for an individual to “Opt” for the return of the Dutch nationality there are now fees and conditions in place. A foreigner requesting to become Dutch through naturalisation pays the same fees and needs to wait about a year for its application to be decided upon. It seems that the right of a former Dutch national to Opt has slowly been watered down to become a similar process as a naturalisation.

It is certainly still possible but not always easy to get your nationality back. If you want to discuss more about possible return of your previous Dutch nationality please do not hesitate to request our 30 minute initial free consult. Where there are easy solutions we point the way, where you want help, we are here for you.

Habsburg Legal Services ltd sponsors time, knowledge and other resources to Nederlanders in den Vreemde and other interest organisations such as the Stichting GOED.