Citizenship and Dual Passports

[Guest beninsyd]

Hi,

Although I am new to the forum, I have been living in Sydney for more than 4 years. Currently I am in the process of applying for citizenship. I am however faced with a dilemma, do I keep my SA citizenship? My feeling is that I will never go back to SA to live. I am happy here in Australia and am having a ball. If I keep my SA citizenship I will be faced with the prospect of red tape in passport renewals, etc.

Another question is, do you forfeit your SA citizenship when you obtain Aussie citizenship?

Any thoughts on this issue will be greatly appreciated.

[Riekie]

It's been a much debated subject (you'll find all of it if you do a search), so I'll just give you the facts:

If you receive Aussie citizenship without applying to retain your RSA Citizenship, you forfeit your RSA citizenship, However (and this is where t does not make sense!) To give up your RSA citizenship, you have to apply to RSA (even though the fact that you did not apply to keep it, caused you to forfeit it! ) If you do not officially apply to give up your RSA citizenship, it is illegal to travel to RSA with your Aussie passport (same confusion... )

In short: If you want to keep it, apply BEFORE you get Aussie Citizenship. If you want to renounce it, apply AFTER you get your Aussie Citizenship.... Whatver you do, get the papers!

[ExASP]

Ok nou wil ek weet..hoe gaan hulle weet jy het Aussie burgerskap as jy aansoek doen om jou SA burgerskap te behou? Damn ek het nie geweet jy moet aansoek doen om dit te beeindig nie...hie hie...ek het dit nerens raakgelees nie....deksels....wat is die vorms se naam?

[Mara]

I have been a NZ citizen for the past nine years, have travelled to SA a number of times on NZ passport. I do not have dual citizenship and have never officially renounced my SA citizenship. I have never had a problem travelling in our out of SA on my NZ passport.

[chatterbug]

We applied for dual citizenship paid the money (R115-00 each) well before our 2 years in Aus, when we bacame eligible for Aus citizenship. I did not have much faith in SA governments admin system and at that point said to Mrs Bug that there is no ways that I'm not going to take up Aus citizenship when they invite us to the ceremony. I thought, let me test them and see if they can get our "approval" back in time, they had more than 11 months to get back to us with a result.

Guess what happened? After paying the money and sending off the relevant forms we have not heard a single thing, not even so much as an acknowledgement of the receipt of the documentation. In the meantime the Aus citizen thing progressed, albeit quite slowly also i'd say ( our actual ceremony was 11 months after our two years here, and it took about four months to get invited to it after our interview). But it did progress and they kept on getting back to us!

Anyhow I obviously gave up my SA citizenship by default but I could not care less. Since I was born there I have a birth right to citizenship. So essentially I gave up something that they cannot take away from me anyway. If ever in future I am misfortunate enough to suffer the affliction of wamting to return to SA to settle I could get my citizenship back.

Fat chance that's going to happen - There is more of a chance for SA to be ruled by a white president again than there is for me returning though...................and that's further away than never.

So I have no faith in SA's home affairs dept, and I'm going to follow, I think it was Larry's advice, I going to renounce my SA citizenship and keep the documentation in my Aus passport. That's if they send me anything back, failing which I'll just keep the letter sent by me. What else can you do?

Eeish - Hulle maak nie so lekker uit van die pampierwerk da by die home efferse nie!!!!

Gatvol BUG

Edited November 19, 2006 by chatterbug

[Otto]

If ever in future I am misfortunate enough to suffer the affliction of wamting to return to SA to settle...