Report on Citizenship Law: Portugal (marriage, partner and filial transfer), as well as naturalisation and the declaration of loss of citizenship (art. 18(1) of the Nationality Act and 46 of the Nationality Regulation). Those interested can make their declarations at the extension of the Central Registry Office (at the National Immigrant Support Centre), at the Conservatories of Civil Registry and at Portuguese consular services. All of these declarations are then dispatched to the Central Registry Office (art. 32(1) of the Nationality Regulation). The new system also allows applicants to send their declarations (by mail or e-mail96) directly to the Central Registry Office (art. 32(2) of the Nationality Regulation). The Central Registry Office has the powers of investigation, decision and registration of such declarations. By contrast, the registration of naturalisation is automatic once the naturalisation has been granted by the Minister of Justice. Thus, the Nationality Regulation rules on two different procedures: the registry procedure and the naturalisation procedure. With regard to the registration procedure, the declarations are preliminarily rejected if they do not meet the formalities required or if the documents proving the necessary facts are not presented (art. 32(3) of the Nationality Regulation). The applicant is notified of the rejection and has the right to be heard within 20 days. After analysing the process, the conservator must decide the outcome within 60 days. If he or she concludes that the registration is to be refused, the applicant has the right to be heard within 30 days. After those 30 days, and after analysing the applicant’s answer, the conservator issues a decision to authorise the registration or not (art. 41 of the Nationality Regulation). The naturalisation procedure is set out by art. 27 of the Nationality Regulation. It is initiated through an application addressed to the Minister of Justice (art. 18 of the Nationality Regulation). All the documents proving that the requirements for naturalisation have been met must be provided with the application.97 The Conservator of the Central Registry then analyses the application within 30 days and will refuse it preliminarily if it is incomplete or if the required documents are not included. In such a case, the applicant is notified and has the right to be heard within 20 days. The Central Registry Office will then request information from other public authorities, which is to be sent within 30 days. After this information is received, and within 45 days, the Central Registry Office issues an opinion on the viability of the application. If the opinion is negative, the applicant is notified and has the right to be heard within 20 days. After this period of time, and after taking into consideration the defence of the applicant, the Central Registry Office sends the application to the Ministry of Justice. The naturalisation procedure ends with a decision of the Minister of Justice who grants or refuses the application. Once the application has been sent to the Minister of Justice, no deadline is stipulated for his decision. 96 This method is dependent on the approval of an act (Portaria) of the Ministry of Justice, which has not yet occurred. 97 Proof of having sufficient knowledge of the Portuguese language is documented through a certificate: (1) of a public or private/cooperative (officially recognised) educational institution; (2) of Portuguese language as foreign language, issued after being approved by an evaluation centre recognised by the Minister of Education (art. 25 of the Nationality Regulation). For those who did not attend an educational establishment or do not possess a certificate of Portuguese as foreign language, the government has created a system of diagnostic tests. These correspond to the model jointly approved by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Education (Portaria n. 60/2011 of 2 February) and are done in one of the referred educational institutions (these tests used to be done before public officers). The certificate of approval on the diagnostic test is issued by the consular services when the applicant resides abroad. Statelessness is proven through documents issued by the authorities of the countries with which the applicant had relevant links, as the country of origin, or the country of the last nationality or of the nationality of his or her ancestors (art. 36 of the Nationality Regulation). RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/1 - © 2020 Author 33