The Constitutional Court decided on Wednesday not to deal with an MPs' official complaint made against a provision in the amended State Citizenship Act that deprives those who acquire the citizenship of another country of their Slovak state citizenship.
According to the Court's head Iveta Macejkova, this was due to procedural reasons, as not enough judges voted in favour of dealing with the issue. The MPs argued that no one should be deprived of their Slovak state citizenship against their will, citing article 5 of the Slovak Constitution. Parliament amended the State Citizenship Act under the first government of Robert Fico in 2010 in reaction to Hungary's Dual Citizenship Act, which facilitated the process of acquiring dual citizenship for all ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries. Under the Slovak amendment, Slovaks lose their Slovak citizenship if they voluntarily apply for a foreign one. According to official statistics, a total of 886 people have lost their Slovak citizenship due to this legislation over the past four years.
