The court handed down the ruling in response to the president's inquiry and in the light of the earlier doctrine, which suggested that cases of dual citizenship should be rare exceptions rather than a matter-of-course procedure.
An adviser to President Dalia Grybauskaitė said this meant that the new generation of emigrants would only be able to have dual citizenship if the Lithuanian Constitution was changed by a referendum.
"Article 12 of the Constitution, which regulates citizenship relations, is in the first chapter of the document, and, under the Constitution, provisions of the first chapter can only be revised in a referendum," presidential adviser Indrė Pukasanytė told journalists after the court hearing.
According to the ruling, a simple law cannot revise provisions which stipulate that the Lithuanian citizenship can be granted by exception only to people for special merits to the state and integration into the society. Exceptions, however, are possible regarding the requirement of command of the Lithuanian language and permanent residence.
Romualdas Kęstutis Urbaitis, president of the court, said Lithuania could envisage different grounds for granting citizenship by exception than naturalized citizenship, which entails the Lithuanian citizenship for persons who have lived in Lithuania for the past 10 years, pass the Lithuanian language test, and meet other criteria.
"Granting the citizenship by exception is a kind of an exception from naturalization, it is a facilitated scheme of granting citizenship. It is the discretion of legislators to establish such grounds or refuse establishing such grounds," Urbaitis said after the court hearing.
No citizenship for American skater
The Wednesday's ruling by the Constitutional Court does not give grounds for granting the Lithuanian citizenship by exception to US ice dancer Isabella Tobias who needs the Lithuanian passport to represent the country in Sochi Olympic, a presidential adviser has said.
"As there have to be special indisputable merits - not future merits – and integration with the Lithuanian society, the decision would remain unchanged under the current legal regulation," adviser Indrė Pukanasytė told journalists after the Constitutional Court's hearing.
Tobias dances in pair with Lithuanian Deividas Stagniūnas. She applied for the Lithuanian citizenship last year, but President Dalia Grybauskaitė rejected application, saying the law does not allow it. She then turned to the Constitutional Court asking to clear out the issue.
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| Organizatorių nuotr./Isabella Tobias ir Deividas Stagniūnas |
