The Framing of the First Hungarian Citizenship Law (Act 50 of 1879) and the Acquisition of Citizenship

Abstract

In 1879, Hungarian legislators deemed it was time to settle the issue of citizenship once and for all. The moment was not chosen by mere accident, because the previous years had witnessed an upsurge of legislative acts striving to legally settle the question of who should belong to the states of Europe. The bill was discussed and opined by the Naturalization Committee of the Parliament. The most important problems were the naturalization and the absence. The first regulation of Hungarian citizenship according to the contemporary constitutional reforms and legal practice only took place in 1879. It is a major milestone in Hungarian citizenship law, since it also incorporated in its system the cases of acquisition and loss of citizenship. The law contains detailed provisions on how the legal relationship between the citizen and the state could be established and terminated. The objective of the law was to make the system of citizenship clear and transparent.