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Citizenship: Turkish nationals could not take the oath of allegiance to Lithuania without submitting official proof of renunciation of their previous citizenship

On 24 September, the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania adopted a ruling dismissing an appeal in a case concerning decisions of the Migration Department. By those decisions, the applicants had been refused permission to take the oath of allegiance to the Republic of Lithuania on the grounds that they had failed to provide proof that they had officially renounced their Turkish citizenship.

The Turkish nationals who applied to the court had already received presidential decrees of the President of the Republic of Lithuania granting them Lithuanian citizenship. However, they argued that they were unable to renounce their Turkish citizenship due to political persecution which, according to them, they would face because of their alleged support for the ideas of Turkish public figure Fethullah Gülen. The applicants claimed that, as a result, they were no longer provided with consular services and that travelling to Turkey would pose a real threat to their safety.

In its ruling, the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania emphasised that the Law on Citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania imposes a mandatory requirement to renounce the citizenship of another state. Exceptions are permitted only in exceptional circumstances — where the law of the other state does not provide for a procedure for renunciation of citizenship at all, or where such a procedure clearly fails to meet the criteria of reasonableness. The Court found that such exceptions were not applicable in the applicants’ case.

In its decisions, the Migration Department had indicated that Turkish law does provide for a procedure for renunciation of citizenship and that this procedure meets the criteria of reasonableness. The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania agreed with this assessment and noted that the applicants had failed to submit sufficient documents or evidence demonstrating that, for objective reasons, they were unable to make use of the established procedure.

The ruling meant that the applicants would be able to acquire Lithuanian citizenship only if they officially renounced their Turkish citizenship and substantiated that renunciation with official documents.

Administrative case No eA-2372-1188/2025