Portugal's Goa Consul-General's recent pronouncement has settled the muddy waters around Portuguese citizenship for the reported 200,000 or so Goans who have registered their births in the Lisbon Central Registry, viz they are Portuguese citizens.
But there are some issues that remain, of no concern to Mr. Baceira, but important to Goans. 1. Was the Indian Govt "notification" circa 1962 that those who did not specifically opt to retain their Portuguese nationality automatically become Indian Citizens, in contravention of the Indian Constitution and therefore not legal. Was the notification upheld in an Indian court (Fr. Chico Monteiro, Leo Lawrence et alia). 2. Before India annexed Goa, it was sufficient that births were registered in Panjim to obtain a Portuguese passport or travel document. There were plans to move all those records to Lisbon but the annexation aborted this. Hence the Portuguese Govt's view that you never stopped being a Portuguese citizen, even if you opted for any other citizenship. By "you" is meant any Goan living in Goa before annexation date and their two generations after, wherever the latter lived. However, for administrative purposes it is required that you extract the Panjim record and register it in Lisbon. 3) Besides the matter of dual citizens in the Goa Govt service and electoral rolls, there are many Goans working in the Gulf countries who are there on Indian passports but are also Portuguese citizens by virtue of registering their (and parents) births in Lisbon. There will be chaos if they are forced to opt for one of the two - lose their European future or lose their jobs and Gulf residence permit based on their Indian passport. What a lot of headaches for the Indian Govt which can be solved with one stroke by allowing Dual Citizenship thereby also gaining the goodwill of the Indian (not just Goan) Diaspora which has been requesting it for many years. Here is an interesting aside: The previous Canadian Govt (Conservative) had brought into law that if convicted in a Canadian Court of serious terrorism charges, you would be deported if you were entitled to residence in any other country. This has made Indian origin employees in Canadian Govt service very skittish about getting the OCI since that entitles you to permanent Indian residence. The current Trudeau liberal govt had promised to repeal that law but has not yet done so. Roland Francis Toronto.
