Report on Citizenship Law: Mozambique case with the previous Constitution, Article 30 (2) refers to ordinary legislation the definition of the conditions under which Mozambican citizens by acquisition will be allowed to exercise public functions and private functions of public interest (funções privadas de interesse público). These provisions give the ordinary legislator ample constitutional coverage for differentiation between citizens by birth and citizens by acquisition, even though the same Constitution recognises in its Article 35 that all citizens are equal before the law, entitled to the same rights and bound by the same obligations. Furthermore, there is one instance in which the Constitution also differentiates among citizens by birth. Article 146 (2) (a) restricts eligibility to the office of President of the Republic by reserving it to Mozambican citizens by birth who do not hold another citizenship. It is not clear whether this eligibility criterion is more or less restrictive than the one adopted by the 1990 Constitution, according to which only Mozambican citizens by birth born to parents who were also Mozambican citizens by birth were entitled to stand for election as President of the Republic [Article 118 (3) (a) and (b) of the 1990 Constitution]. It is, in any case, a more common eligibility criterion among African states, being enshrined in, among others, the Constitutions of Algeria, Cape Verde, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt and Equatorial Guinea (Manby 2016: 97). 4. Current political debates and reforms The 2004 Constitution was a clear improvement to Mozambique’s citizenship regime, both in terms of substantive provisions – e.g. acceptance of dual citizenship, gender neutral rules for acquisition of citizenship by marriage, protection of citizenship against involuntary loss – and in terms of legislative technique, but there is still considerable room to further improve the constitutional framework, by introducing judicial review of citizenship related administrative acts and by eliminating typos, inconsistencies and unnecessary redundancies in the text [e.g. Articles 23 (1) (b), 24 (4) with 25, and 31 (a) and (b)]. However, as noted throughout this report, the main problem with the Mozambican citizenship regime is not in the Constitution, but in the fact that no new ordinary legislation has been adopted to regulate the constitutional framework set in 2004 and to repeal and replace the 1975 Nationality Act and the 1975 Nationality Regulation. Many of the provisions in the 1975 Nationality Act and in the 1975 Nationality Regulation have been implicitly repealed with the entry into force of the 2004 Constitution. Nevertheless, in the absence of clear guidelines as to which provisions were actually repealed and which can be considered to remain in force as complementary to the constitutional provisions, civil registry officials are left to their own devices to interpret a complex legal framework and this has led to inconsistent practices at provincial and state level to the detriment of prospective Mozambican citizens. Besides, there are many aspects introduced to the citizenship regime by the 2004 Constitution which need regulation, such as the new naturalisation requirements of knowing Portuguese or another Mozambican language and of offering guarantees set by law. A new Nationality Act is therefore a top priority. In addition, as a matter of urgency, public officials working with citizenship related matters at central and provincial level should be provided clear guidelines as to the legal framework in force and be given proper training so that they understand the specific weight of the constitutional RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2019/6 - © 2019 Author 37