Report on Citizenship Law: Rwanda or her overall personal conduct. Once suitability is determined, a proposal for granting is made to the cabinet for approval.71 Whereas this level of oversight may be considered a good move to scrutinise the Director General, it is time-consuming due to delays in cabinet schedules. Moreover, it closes options for appeal, since the cabinet as the appealable organ has already been involved in the decision-making in the first round. Thus, the chances of having the cabinet reconsider its decision without a significant change in circumstances are close to none. 3.3.2. Deprivation The term ‘deprivation of nationality’ refers to an act by a competent authority to take back the status of Rwandan nationality from a person who the authority believes has acquired it fraudulently or maliciously.72 Rwandan nationality law defines fraudulent acquisition as a situation where nationality was acquired or recovered in accordance with the law but through manoeuvres, fraud, false statements, sham marriages, corruption or any other form of misrepresentation or abuse of process.73 Malicious acquisition is referred to as a situation where the acquisition of Rwandan nationality was ill-intentioned and aimed at furthering the commission of a much bigger offence, the betrayal of the country.74 Thus, this raises the following legal questions: i) If malicious acquisition is premised on the existence of an ill-intentioned act against Rwanda, this must be established not by the institution taking a decision to withdraw nationality but rather by a competent court in accordance with its guiding principles.75 Thus, the Court must be satisfied of a pre-existing plan to betray the country and make a ruling before a move to withdraw nationality is even entertained. ii) As malicious acquisition is a concurrent offence, it cannot be separated from the overriding offence of betraying the country, which is only determined by the court. Thus, a move by an institution to withdraw nationality on the basis of a crime that has not been legally established is an abuse of power. Rwandan laws are not clear with regard to acts amounting to the crime of ‘betrayal of the country.’ The penal code applies the term ‘damaging the national interest’ in its provisions relating to espionage and treason.76 However, it is not clear whether ‘betraying the country’ is approximated to ‘damaging the national interest’. Even if these provisions are dynamically interpreted as having the same meaning, it would still be contrary to the demands of Rwandan criminal law, which prohibits the interpretation of Rwandan criminal law broadly and courts deciding on cases on the 71 See Article 9 of the Presidential Order on Rwandan Nationality Article 19 of the Law of Rwandan Nationality of 2008 73 Article 19(2) (1) of the Law of Rwandan Nationality of 2008 74 Article 19(2) (2) of the Law of Rwandan Nationality of 2008, permits deprivation if a person “applied for and was granted Rwandan nationality with the intention of betraying the country”. 75 See Article 151 of the Constitution of the Republic of Rwanda (2015 version). 76 See Article 192 of the penal code. In its definition of crimes of espionage, it uses the Kinyarwanda wording “kugirira nabi Repubilika y’u Rwanda” which is translated as “harming the Republic of Rwanda.” 72 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/10 - © 2020 Author(s) 13