Julia Schweers restrictive laws for refugees’ naturalisation. For instance, Ugandan law makes it impossible for refugees to legally acquire Ugandan citizenship although many of them live in Uganda in second and even third generation (Refugee Law Project 2019). Whether such assistance by the Refugee Board (Ghana’s agency in charge of management of refugee-related activities), as outlined in the Ghanaian Refugee Law, is regularly taking place is unclear and even doubtful. De facto, as in other African countries as well (see for the West African context: Manby 2015; 2021, 514) , refugees’ prospects of naturalising in Ghana are low – such as in the case of the former Liberian refugees. In 2012, UNHCR decided to end Liberian refugee status by invoking the cessation clause of the 1951 Refugee Convention. As a consequence, the status of Liberians switched from refugees to immigrants and the Ghanaian state had to find a way to deal with its Liberian population. Despite the fact that Liberian refugees had lived in Ghana for over 20 years, the remaining 10,400 Liberians in Ghana (UNHCR 2023, 4) were not offered Ghanaian citizenship but only a two-year work and residence permit (Omata 2017, 158). Their decades of living relatively self-reliant in the country were not taken into account. The short-term residence permits of two years that they were then eligible for (if they did not decide to be returned by UNHCR) did not offer them a route to naturalisation either because it remained under the five-year benchmark for naturalisation enshrined in the 2000 Citizenship Act. 3.2 Loss and Deprivation of Citizenship There is no provision in the constitution or the legislation for automatic loss of citizenship since Ghana’s introduction of dual citizenship in 1996 (see also on dual citizenship 3.3). With this reform, provisions on the loss of citizenship upon acquiring another citizenship were deleted. Revocation of citizenship, however, is possible, though difficult. Only Ghanaians who acquired their citizenship in other ways than by birth or adoption (interestingly, descent is not mentioned) can be denationalised – already a significant limitation on the deprivation power. The permitted reasons for denationalisation are one, concerns about national security and, two, fraudulent acquisition (Citizenship Act, No.591 of 2000, section 18). Most importantly, denationalisation requires the Attorney General to make an application to the High Court for deprivation of citizenship. In the Ghanaian political system, the Attorney General is, at the same time, the Minister for Justice and is considered part of the executive branch. This provision, which is included both in the 1992 Constitution and the 2000 Citizenship Act, thus underlines important checks and balances. It makes it difficult for the executive branch to denationalise citizens as it hands the executive no other power than to go to court. In addition, the constitution provides that parliament may enact legislation on the renunciation of citizenship (Constitution 1992 (1996), section 9(5). The 2000 Citizenship Act does exactly this. It provides that, first, renunciation of Ghanaian citizenship through a declaration is possible, however, only for dual citizens (providing a protection against statelessness). Second, it provides that those who renounced their Ghanaian citizenship because their country of second citizenship forced them to do so in order to acquire its citizenship upon marriage, would automatically regain their Ghanaian citizenship upon divorce (Citizenship Act, No. 591 of 2000, section 17). 3.3 Dual Citizenship: A Diasporan Push for Recognition In 1996, the constitution was amended – less than four years after it came into force. The main reason for the 1996 Amendment Act was an outcry from the Ghanaian diaspora over the 12 Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies - EUI