The Latvian Citizenship Law provides a special mechanism for the restoration of citizenship for persons whose families were forced to leave Latvia during the occupations of the 20th century. This concerns the so-called Latvian Exiles (or forced emigrants) — Latvian citizens and their descendants who left the country between 17 June 1940 and 4 May 1990 in order to escape Nazi or Soviet occupation, or who were deported from Latvia and did not return to Latvia for permanent residence before the restoration of independence.
For many descendants of such persons, Latvian citizenship is of particular interest as a second citizenship, as it makes it possible to restore a legal connection with Latvia without renouncing their existing citizenship.
Since the annexation of Latvia and the subsequent occupations (Soviet, Nazi, and again Soviet) did not interrupt the existence of the Republic of Latvia de jure, persons who left the country during the above-mentioned period for reasons connected with the occupying regimes, as well as their descendants, are not regarded as emigrants in the ordinary sense of the word. For them, the law provides a mechanism for the restoration of Latvian citizenship, rather than the acquisition of citizenship through the general migration procedure involving temporary and permanent residence permits followed by naturalization.
The right to have citizenship restored may be claimed by persons who were Latvian citizens as of 17 June 1940 and who left the country during the period of occupations, as well as by their direct descendants (children, grandchildren and further generations in the direct descending line) born outside Latvia.
For this category of applicants, Latvian law allows the retention of their existing citizenship and the acquisition of Latvian citizenship as a second citizenship. This is one of the fundamental differences between this mechanism and naturalization.
Despite the fact that the right to restoration of citizenship is established by law, its implementation in practice is rarely a purely formal procedure. Even where archival documents are available, it is not always clear how they will be interpreted by the competent authorities.
The law firm Inlatplus provides legal assistance in matters related to the restoration of Latvian citizenship for descendants of Latvijas Exiles, from an initial legal assessment of prospects to the representation of the client’s interests before the competent authorities. The initial analysis makes it possible to determine whether a particular situation falls within the statutory mechanism, what legal and evidentiary risks exist, and how best to structure the case strategy.
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