In Grybauskaitė's words, the current scheme of granting the Lithuanian citizenship is very rigid, while the changes the society is going through revises people's expectations. Therefore, a clear answer is needed whether amendments to the Citizenship Law are enough for granting the Lithuanian citizenship to more applicants or whether it requires Constitutional changes.
The president asked the court to answer whether it was necessary to amend the Constitution in order to allow dual citizenship to people who moved abroad after the 1990 declaration of independence and may have acquired citizenship of these countries.
The court is also asked to explain the possibilities of expanding the cases and conditions when foreigners could become citizens of the Republic of Lithuania by exception.
Under the current wording of the Constitution and the doctrine of the Constitutional Court, cases of dual citizenship can be only rare exceptions and not a common practice. Consequently, the Lithuanian citizenship can be granted to foreign nationals for special merits to the state rather than supposed or future merits, given that they are integrated with the Lithuanian society.
Ice skater Isabella Tobias, a US citizen, recently sought Lithuanian citizenship to be able to represent Lithuania at Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 with her Lithuanian partner Deividas Stagniūnas.
Grybauskaitė then rejected her application, saying that the decision was based on a previous ruling of the Constitutional Court saying that future merits was not a sufficient basis for granting the Lithuanian citizenship by exception.
Expected changes
Commenting on Grybauskaitė's move, her advisor says that after the Constitutional Court's explanation on citizenship, Lithuania may consider the possibility of loosening up provisions for granting citizenship to foreign nationals or allowing double citizenship.
In comment of the president's appeal to the Constitutional Court, Rasa Svetikaitė, the head of the Legal Team of the President's Office, said that public expectations in connection to citizenship were changing.
"The society is a living body, which changes along with its expectations. We could think about certain revisions, if the Constitutional Court rules that legal amendments would be sufficient and changes to the Constitution would not be necessary," Svetikaitė told BNS on Monday.
"The law has been discussed thoroughly, therefore, the president exercised her right of turning for explanation," the adviser said.
"Too strict"
Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius has criticized the Constitutional Court's standing on dual citizenship as too tight, saying the regulation should be more liberal.
"I believe it's too strict. I would be somewhat more liberal on this matter," the prime minister told journalists on Monday in comment of his stance on the Constitutional Court's position on dual citizenship.
Butkevičius, the leader of the ruling Social Democrats, expressed support to President Grybauskaitė's move to turn to the Constitutional Court.
"If the president approached the court, we should support the president, lawyers probably laid down some argumentation for appealing. I believe there may be certain doubts, which will be cleared after the Constitutional Court completes its work and makes a decision," Butkevičius said.
