Well elucidated Roland. —Venantius On Thu, Jun 9, 2016 at 10:38 AM, Roland <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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.
