FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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What the law says about stripping Thai nationality

What the law says about stripping Thai nationality

Re: “Thailand failing to enforce law on dual nationality”, Have Your Say, August 31.  

Clara Holzer’s call to the government to enforce the law by stripping fugitives of their Thai nationality is based on a common misunderstanding of Thai nationality law.
Whereas the Nationality Act does empower the minister to revoke the Thai nationality of Thais who naturalise as aliens in Section 22, the wording of this clause is somewhat ambiguous. The interpretation has consistently been that the minister has the power to revoke the nationality of Thais who naturalise as aliens, only if they apply to renounce their nationality voluntarily. Evidence of this can be found by default in the Royal Gazette, where there is not a single announcement of involuntary revocation of Thai nationality under Section 22, since the current law was promulgated in 1965.  Today there are many thousands of Thais who have naturalised as aliens without renouncing their Thai citizenship. The Foreign Ministry fully supports their dual nationality at its embassies and consulates abroad and has even provided advice to them on its website on the correct way to use their two passports when travelling.   
The 2017 Constitution, which outranks all other statutory laws, is less ambivalent than the Nationality Act and further reinforces the point that the fugitives’ Thai nationality cannot be revoked, unless they were not Thai from birth. In Section 39 it says, “Revocation of Thai nationality acquired by birth of a person shall not be permitted.”  This is a completely new provision that has not just been cut and pasted from earlier constitutions, implying that the drafters intended to clear up the ambiguity in the Nationality Act.
The only action that can be taken against the fugitives, in this regard, is to cancel their Thai passports and this should be done mandatorily and without fuss, as soon as it is confirmed they have fled the country to avoid Thai justice.
George Morgan

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