Report on Citizenship Law: Mozambique Constitution. The 1975 Nationality Act and the 1975 Nationality Regulation were therefore allowed to remain partially in force. The 1990 Constitution included a separate chapter on citizenship, subdivided in five sections – citizenship by origin (Articles 11-20), acquired citizenship (Articles 21-23), loss of citizenship (Article 24), reacquisition of citizenship (Articles 25-26) and miscellaneous (Articles 27-29). The provisions on citizenship by origin replicated the criteria set by the Nationality Act, with some adjustments in phrasing and structure. Article 11 decoupled the two hypotheses of Article 1 (1) (d) of the Nationality Act by listing as separate grounds for attribution of citizenship to individuals born in Mozambique the fact that they had established domicile in Mozambique within 90 days after the proclamation of independence [Article 11 (1) (d)] and the fact that the President of the Republic had already granted them Mozambican citizenship by origin [Article 11 (1) (e)].48 Article 13 eliminated the reference to FRELIMO when recognising as Mozambicans the individuals who had participated in the liberation struggle and were not covered by other legal provisions, provided that they declared their wish to be Mozambicans and expressly renounced any other citizenship. Article 17 made it clear that the requirement of being under 40 years of age referred to the date of independence. The main innovation vis-à-vis the attribution regime in the Nationality Act was the introduction of a provision for the automatic and unconditional attribution of Mozambican citizenship to children born abroad to a Mozambican father or mother who was abroad in the service of the Mozambican state (Article 18). All other children born abroad to Mozambican parent(s) continued to be required to expressly renounce any foreign citizenship as condition to be attributed Mozambican citizenship (Article 19). The 1990 Constitution introduced several changes to the naturalisation regime. Article 22 innovated by (a) adding the obligation to renounce any previous citizenship, (b) raising the residence requirement to 10 years, (c) lowering the age requirement to 18 years, and (d) referring to ordinary legislation the definition of the requirements and guarantees to be met by applicants.49 This reference to ordinary legislation meant that Article 11 (c) of the 1975 Nationality Act remained in force, requiring applicants to offer political and moral guarantees of integration into Mozambican society, to not have been leading members of colonial-fascist political organisations, officials or informants of foreign political police forces, nor convicts for crimes against the Mozambican people or decolonisation, and to not have been convicted for crime against the security of the people and of the state. Furthermore, Article 23 narrowed the scope of the provision which allowed the children of naturalised citizens to also acquire Mozambican citizenship, since it only recognised as entitled the ‘unmarried children under the age of 18’, and not the ‘underage’ children, which would have meant those up to 21 years of age. The provision on loss made a couple of significant changes, by eliminating indignity as grounds for loss and by narrowing the type of services rendered to a foreign state that could justify depriving someone of his or her Mozambican citizenship. Per Article 24 (b) of the 1990 Constitution, in order to be grounds for citizenship deprivation it was now necessary that the service rendered was likely to harm the best interests of the nation or the sovereignty of the state. Article 24 (c) kept the provision for loss by individuals who held a foreign citizenship and either declared their wish not to be Mozambican or behaved as foreigners, but set no deadline for the declaration. While the 1990 Constitution remained hostile to dual 48 Although this provision could be considered to cover all cases in which the President had granted citizenship by origin, Article 20 nevertheless added an explicit mention to cases in which the President had granted Mozambican citizenship by origin for relevant services rendered to the national liberation cause. 49 A similar reference to ordinary legislation was made by Article 21 (d) of the 1990 Constitution for the acquisition of Mozambican citizenship by foreign women on the grounds of marriage to Mozambican men. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2019/6 - © 2019 Author 17