What you need to know about the new Nationality Law
Parliament approved the new version of the Nationality Law this Wednesday, April 1st. The PSD, the governing party, relied on votes from Chega for approval. DN Brasil explains the changes and the next steps: When does it come into force? It is not possible to know the exact date. The texts must be sent to President António José Seguro, who has 20 days for analysis. If he decides to send it to the Constitutional Court, he must do so within the first eight days. After analysis, the document must be published in the Diário da República (DRE) and enters into force the following day. What was approved? In Wednesday's session, only the rules that had been rejected by the Constitutional Court were voted on. In other words, the Government adjusted the text so that the legislation complies with the constitution. This was the case regarding the loss of nationality for committing serious crimes and the specification of which crimes fall under this rule. Citizens who have been sentenced to a prison term of three years or more also cannot obtain nationality. What else will change? These rules were already approved and are now reconfirmed with the new vote: It will no longer be possible to request Portuguese nationality through babies born in Portugal; five years of residence with a residence permit will be required for babies born in the country to have the right to Portuguese nationality; the residence time required to request nationality will increase from five to seven years for citizens of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), and to ten years for others; the special regime for descendants of Sephardic Jews has ended; the article that allowed the waiting time for a residence permit to be counted towards the nationality application has been removed; there will be no transition regime for these changes. Will it be retroactive? No, it will count from the date it enters into force. Can those with ongoing processes be affected? No, processes already submitted follow the current rules.
