Aliens or Alienated? Naturalisation of Ex-Yugoslav Citizens in the Republic of Croatia

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to summarise the implications of the succession of the former Yugoslavia and correlated social changes for the legal status of ex-Yugoslav citizens in the Republic of Croatia. The focus of the research refers to the issue of the acquisition of Croatian citizenship by naturalisation with reference to the challenges and obstacles encountered by ex-Yugoslav citizens in the course of the naturalisation procedure. This is done through an analysis of pre-and post-succession legislation as well asdiscretionary decisions of the Ministry of the Interior in relation to corrective judgments of the Administrative Court and the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia, adopted during the naturalisation procedures of a significant group of people who became aliens overnight, at the moment of the dissolution of the predecessor state. The large space for maneuvering enabled by provisions of the national citizenship legislation allowed the Ministry of the Interior to adopt a number of controversial decisions, which deny access to Croatian citizenship to people who otherwise qualify for its acquisition, thus leaving them in a particular vacuum between citizens and non-citizens until the final say of the Constitutional Court. This paper highlights constitutive elements of the respective sui generis approach to post-succession citizenship. Given the fact that the analysis encompasses a critical assessment of relevant provisions of theYugoslav and Croatian national legislation, the scientific inquiry isprincipally based on the legal dogmatic method.
Keywords: state succession, citizenship, naturalisation, ex-Yugoslav citizens, Republic of Croatia