Automatic Restoration to Sierra Leone Citizenship

To:  Sierra Leone's Legislature and Executive

SUBJECT: PROPOSED LEGISLATION TO AMEND THE CITIZENSHIP ACT OF 1973 SO AS TO GRANT THE RIGHT OF DUAL CITIZENSHIP

The Sierra Leone Citizenship Act 1973 is clear that under normal circumstances one's entitlement to Sierra Leonean Citizenship is based on birth and parentage. No other qualifications are required.

As the above draft legislation stands in its current form, the requirement that one who is already entitled to citizenship should have to apply for citizenship is untenable, and any suggestion that a Minister has the right to deny the application of someone who is entitled to Sierra Leone citizenship is a usurpation of our constitutional and birthright.

Therefore, after careful review of the parent Act, the Sierra Leone Citizenship Act 1973 and the provisions in the Bill regarding the Resumption of Citizenship to be placed before Parliament we propose that section 19A (1) (a) be amended to read as follows:

Where any person who would have been a citizen of Sierra Leone but for the provisions of section 10 and 11 of the Sierra Leone Citizenship Act 1973 shall by virtue of this Act be deemed not to have lost his citizenship or ceased to be a Sierra Leonean citizen and he shall without any further act on his part be deemed to have retained said Sierra Leonean citizenship throughout the relevant period prior to the operative date of the within Act. By using such deeming provisions, this proposed amendment mandates automatic reversion of citizenship for all those Sierra Leoneans who may for one reason or the other have lost their Sierra Leonean citizenship.

We humbly suggest that the foregoing is a more practical way of restoring Sierra Leone Citizenship to those who are entitled and eliminates any arbitrary process which could give rise to possible constitutional conflict.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Automatic Restoration to Sierra Leone Citizenship Petition to Sierra Leone's Legislature and Executive was created by Sierra Leone Network and written by Niyi Robbin-Coker (niyi@sierraleonenetwork.org).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.

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