Litigious representation in naturalization process

Our Office has successfully represented its client in the proceedings for the annulment of an administrative decision concerning the withdrawal of his citizenship.

The starting point of this case is the Act 55 of 1993 on Hungarian citizenship (hereinafter: Citizenship Act) which regulates the ways of obtaining Hungarian citizenship. According to Paragraph 4 Section 3 of the Citizenship Act a foreign citizen whose ascendant was a Hungarian citizen or who is able to substantiate Hungarian origin and proves his/her proficiency of the Hungarian language, may be naturalized on preferential terms.

According to the guidelines from 2013 issued by the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice the required level of Hungarian language knowledge is the ability to communicate at intermediate level. The communication shall be bilateral which means both ability of comprehension and expression at intermediate level.

The abovementioned naturalization on preferential terms entered into force as a part of the Citizenship Act on 20 August 2010.

According to Paragraph 9 Section 1 of the Citizenship Act the Hungarian citizenship may be withdrawn if it was obtained by unlawful means, in particular, if the recipient’s conduct aimed the misleading of the authorities by disclosing false and untrue data, or by concealing any data or facts. Hungarian citizenship may not be withdrawn after ten years from the date it was granted.

Our Client submitted a petition for acquisition of Hungarian citizenship based on Paragraph 4 Section 3 of the Citizenship Act at embassy of Tel-Aviv in 2013. Since he complied with all the conditions of naturalization by the applicable legislation, he was granted Hungarian citizenship.

In 2018, after five and a half years from the date the citizenship was granted, our Client turned to another embassy of Hungary concerning matters of his Hungarian passport, whereby colleges of the embassy stated that our Client does not speak and understand Hungarian language. Record was taken of this, based on which the Department of Citizenship and Civil Registration of Budapest Government Office President adopted a decision recommending the President to withdraw our Client’ Hungarian citizenship. Our Client has never lived in Hungary, has learnt Hungarian in his childhood and has not used it since then regularly.

The Government Office reasoned in its decision that our Client has not met one of the conditions of the preferential naturalization, namely the certification of language proficiency, due to which the Hungarian citizenship may be withdrawn according to Paragraph 9 Section 1 of the Citizenship Act.

Our Client mandated Nógrádi Law Office to submit a claim for annulment of the Government Office’s decision to the competent court and to represent him during the litigation.

The Supreme Court in its previous practice (Kfv.37848/2018/4.; Kfv.37804/2015/4.; Kfv.33704/2015/6.) concluded that language knowledge obtained by applicants at the time of submission of the naturalization application has to be compared to their language knowledge by the time of the court procedure. The existing case law assumes that the level of language knowledge may erode but may not be completely erased. The misguidance of the authority may only be declared regarding the language knowledge if the applicant’s most recent language knowledge points out that he or she could not have spoken Hungarian at the appropriate level at the time of submitting the naturalization application.

Our Office intended to prove in the course of an oral hearing before the Court that although the Client’s language knowledge has significantly eroded due to lack of active usage of the Hungarian language and native-language environment, yet these factors may not entail the withdrawal of his citizenship as this conclusion is fully supported by his current language knowledge.

Among the defending arguments, our Office highlighted that language knowledge cannot be examined isolated, also personal circumstances should be taken into account because the withdrawal of citizenship is the most serious sanction which could be imposed on our Client. In the particular case, our Office emphasized that our Client learnt Hungarian as a child from his grandmother as a third-generation ascendant, he has never had the opportunity to communicate with other family members in Hungarian. His vocabulary and used grammatical structures are equivalent to a child’s communication. It cannot be neglected that our Client’s native language is Hebrew and currently uses English daily. These languages are not even similar to Hungarian and these facts greatly led to significant reduction of his Hungarian language knowledge. At the same time, it could be stated that previously he has spoken Hungarian at a higher level, for example, he was familiar with Hungarian grammar structures, such as conjugation rules.

After the personal hearing, the court agreed with our Office that our Client did not mislead the authority at the time of applying for Hungarian citizenship since it was revealed that six years earlier, he had spoken Hungarian at an appropriate level. Accordingly, the Court annulled the administrative decision initiating the withdrawal of our Client’s Hungarian citizenship.