Report on Citizenship Law: Bolivia
communitarian, decolonising and of quality, being characterised as intracultural, intercultural
and plurilingual.
From the beginning, we can see that in the legislation the terms ‘citizenship’ and
‘nationality’ were sometimes confused, leading legislators to move forward and backward in
their regulation. The social moment and the constant change of rulers that the country
experienced were also highly influential, given that the latter led to every constitutional reform.
At first the regulations appeared to be general and comprehensive, however compliance
must have been difficult. For example, the first legislations established that a profession or trade
with an income was able to be granted citizenship and to exercise political rights, illiteracy was
high, which seriously discriminated the majority of Bolivians in the exercise of these rights.
Another considerable fact is the bureaucracy that exists in Bolivia, although apparently
the procedure is easy to comply with theoretically, in reality this is not the case. The procedure
for obtaining the necessary requirements is quite extensive and difficult to comply with, in
addition to the scant efficiency that is found when carrying out such procedures. The National
Office of Migration is an institution that still has to progress in reducing procedures and giving
better service to the people who request them. Otherwise, we will see the increase of illegal
people without valid papers in the country.
Among the successes, we can highlight that the new Political Constitution of the State
accepts that Bolivians can choose to be citizens of other countries without this entailing the loss
of their Bolivian nationality. This is a success since previously many expatriates had had opted
not to naturalise in other countries for fear of losing their Bolivian citizenship. As a result, they
could not access some of the political rights, such as electing senior officials, in the destination
countries.
There are still issues awaiting legislation, like the loss of nationality acquired by
naturalisation, or regarding double nationality that one has to use the same one when entering
and/or existing the country.
Bolivia is currently experiencing a process of integration, in which each and every
person born or living in Bolivia can assert their rights and be granted the guarantees that
correspond; that all can take part in the decisions important for the nation, there is still a long
way to go but important steps have been made.
RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/2 - © 2020 Author
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