Dual Citizenship Question.

Yep, that is the new law...

I applied for SA citizenship in March 2016, when the rule was 5 years on PR. In September 2016 they updated the application to say I was only eligible for citizenship in March 2010.

Quite bleak that they never told me this before I applied. :mad:
 
Naks said:
Yep, that is the new law...

I applied for SA citizenship in March 2016, when the rule was 5 years on PR. In September 2016 they updated the application to say I was only eligible for citizenship in March 2010.

Quite bleak that they never told me this before I applied. :mad:
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You and many others.

To address the OP; it's not a costly exercise, just incredibly bureaucratic!

The British Embassy in Pretoria will only provide a general letter, more of a statement, that HMG has no objection to its citizens holding dual-citizenship. This seems to be acceptable to DHA.

You will be asked for a Police Clearance from country of origin. You apply for this online. Expensive it is!

But as Naks found out, DHA moved the goalposts around Oct last year and introduced 10 years (not a problem for the OP). But the process became incredibly bureaucratic.

There is a whole new process, which kicks off with having your PR validated before the application is even accepted. Then you will have to take a language proficiency test, they don't say how they will handle native English speakers...

What is truly interesting is that these changes came in with the 2012 Regulations (to the Citizenship Act) only introduced in 2013, but curiously, never applied by DHA offices until Oct 2016!

What is not generally known, is that the Regulations contradict the Act, making the regulations unlawful.

Regulations are subordinate legislation. It means they can never be more restrictive than the enabling legislation which is the Act. If it is, it is ultra vires the Act and unlawful and should be set aside.

An SA attorney (De Saude) suggests that if the matter were to be taken to court, the regulations would likely be set aside...
 
Get the South African passport, then the British one. (or citizenship) Because the UK don't care about it, they're not idiotic like the SA home affairs.

And if you want a peaceful flight, NEVER give both passports to the local passport control. Use SA in SA. I once gave both by mistake and got a 10min lecture about why if I dont want to be only South African I should give up my South African citizenship because "we don't allow these colonial things here" yadda yadda blah blah rubbish.
 
I've got a young friend (SA born) who is looking into getting a UK passport. If she got dual, would that affect her government funding for studies? She's studying at UNISA.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
I hope the UK is less painful than the rest of the EU. Renewing Austrian passports (and most EU countries) do not accept home-affairs documents unless certified via DIRCO:
- For my kid they were not happy with the now 18 year old full birth certificate and requested a new birth-certificate which had to get an Apostille from DIRCO (certified copies or certified originals did not count)
- As an EU citizen I had to get a DHA letter of determination proving that I have not become a SA citizen (WTF?) - also Apostille from DIRCO

FWIW: A trip to DIRCO was so worth it - a super impressive and organised government department - getting the Apostille took 15 minutes (while you wait), free undercover parking and super-friendly/efficient staff - felt like I visited a different country.
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Nope. Don’t have that issue. I have triple-citizenship (Germany, Netherlands and Namibia) with a SA-Perm. When I needed to apply for a passport, I just went to the embassy (German one in Cape Town) and they pushed everything through. Dutch are a little more tricky, you lose citizenship if you let your passport expire, and re-establishing Citizenship is a schlepp. But again, just rock up with Dutch ID and passport and you are sorted.

Same story with my girlfriend. She is dual citizen (German and SA) and the Germans don’t give a flock. You just bring your German passport and you are good to go.
 
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reactor_sa said:
Oh yay, more free loader's. Unlike first world countries where immigrants come to contribute, in SA they come to join 50 million other social welfare recipients.
Heck, my old domestic just pitched up from Zimbabwe and purchased a SA ID at home affairs for R3,500.
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TIA!
 
Nicholas Lisse said:
Nope. Don’t have that issue. I have triple-citizenship (Germany, Netherlands and Namibia) with a SA-Perm. When I needed to apply for a passport, I just went to the embassy (German one in Cape Town) and they pushed everything through. Dutch are a little more tricky, you lose citizenship if you let your passport expire, and re-establishing Citizenship is a schlepp. But again, just rock up with Dutch ID and passport and you are sorted.

Same story with my girlfriend. She is dual citizen (German and SA) and the Germans don’t give a flock. You just bring your German passport and you are good to go.
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Actually Germany is very strict and dual citizenship is only allowed under very specific circumstances. Non-EU- and non-Swiss citizens must usually renounce their old citizenship if they want to become German citizens. I'm surprised you and your girlfriend had it so easy, you must both fit into one of the 'exception' groups though.
 
C4Cat said:
Actually Germany is very strict and dual citizenship is only allowed under very specific circumstances. Non-EU- and non-Swiss citizens must usually renounce their old citizenship if they want to become German citizens. I'm surprised you and your girlfriend had it so easy, you must both fit into one of the 'exception' groups though.
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If it's by birth then ze Germans don't have an issue with it
 
Cost Conscious said:
What is not generally known, is that the Regulations contradict the Act, making the regulations unlawful.
Regulations are subordinate legislation. It means they can never be more restrictive than the enabling legislation which is the Act. If it is, it is ultra vires the Act and unlawful and should be set aside.
An SA attorney (De Saude) suggests that if the matter were to be taken to court, the regulations would likely be set aside...
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Some good news: this was challenged via lawsuit in the Western Cape High Court, where the plaintiff argued precisely this point. The ruling was in favour of the plaintiff(s), therefore our immigration lawyers are now filing new citizenship applications on this basis.
 
Naks said:
Some good news: this was challenged via lawsuit in the Western Cape High Court, where the plaintiff argued precisely this point. The ruling was in favour of the plaintiff(s), therefore our immigration lawyers are now filing new citizenship applications on this basis.
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Thanks for that. Not sure if we can post links but if you can share I am interested to view it.

The Public Protector's office issued a report in Feb which found that the regulation was unlawful and directed Minister and DG of Home Affairs to come up with a plan within 3 months to remedy. We are now almost 4 months past their own imposed deadline!

I have checked regularly with the compliance officer at the PP's office in PTA and she says the next step is to subpoena the Minister.

No timeframes of course despite their report continuing to be flouted by the ex-DG and Gigaba. Who the f*** does one complain to when the PP fail in their role? (rhetorical).
 
I don't have a link, only an email from my lawyer.

I have a hard copy of the PP's report, if you're interested - my lawyer gave it to me when I first consulted him. He used this as the basis to file the lawsuit for another plaintiff.
 
Naks said:
I don't have a link, only an email from my lawyer.

I have a hard copy of the PP's report, if you're interested - my lawyer gave it to me when I first consulted him. He used this as the basis to file the lawsuit for another plaintiff.
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Thanks for the offer but I downloaded a copy from the PP website.

The problem is no longer in proving that the current regulations are 'illegal' but in enforcing the findings of the PP or indeed of a civil court.

The PP complainants probably could not afford to take DHA to court and neither can I, so it's depressing that having issued adverse findings against DHA and the Minister that the PP is now supine in enforcing its judgement.

It's also regrettable that none of the NGO's involved with refugees affairs could be bothered to open a case in the civil courts.

I suspect that DHA is weighing it's options of an appeal since it opens the 'floodgates' of probably hundreds of applications having to be retroactively accepted for the last 5 odd years. Given that their Legal department is of low calibre and engages in wasteful and fruitless legal challenges, I am not optimistic.

I hope your advocate is successful in forcing DHA to process your application. Do post any progress here please!
 
I don't think this applies to refugees - met a Somali-born Uber driver the other day who was so happy that he got his ZA citizenship after being here for only 2 years... I almost smacked the back of his head, but he was driving...
 
Cost Conscious said:
Out of interest did you get finalised yet?
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So after the Western Cape High Court ruled in favour of the plaintiffs and also due to the report from the Public Protector, the DHA had no option but to accept applications for citizenship for PR holders after 5 years.

However, no sooner had I collated all the documentation that the lawyers then informed me that DHA now has a new step in the process - 'Verification of PR'. Which literally means you have to go to DHA where they take your fingerprints, send them off to PTA, where they get manually/visually verified against the fingerprints from your PR application.

So this is another 12 weeks of waiting to get that verified, and then we can proceed with the actual application. #fml
 
Time has no meaning for DHA.

The verification of your PR should not take that long and the application then (should) get passed back to civic services dealing with naturalisations. I don't believe you have to do anything other than prod them for updates.

If there is no problem with your PR certificate, they should approve your application and the next irritant will be waiting for an 'induction ceremony' dreamed up by Gigaba and nothing more than a piece of theatre PR for DHA. This is where you sign the oath of allegiance that you used to sign at your local DHA office. Trouble is they only seem to hold 2 a year and you may just miss one and have a long wait until the next...
 
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