Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.11.2007, Blaðsíða 10

10 | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 17 2007 | Article
At the Grapevine’s request, the Icelandic Ministry
of Justice has explained the procedure for apply-
ing to receive fast-track Icelandic citizenship by
act of Parliament.
There are two ways of applying for Icelandic
citizenship. The normal way, used by several hun-
dred people every year, is outlined in Article 5 of
law 100/1952. Decisions are made by the Ministry
of Justice. The express route, used by a few dozen
people per year, is based on Article 6 of the same
law. Here the decision is made by Alþingi (the Ice-
landic Parliament). More specifically, applications
are approved or rejected by parliament’s General
Committee twice a year, and then the decision is
confirmed by the entire parliament.
The website of Iceland’s Ministry of Justice
explains the procedures for applying under Ar-
ticle 5. But Iceland’s government gives no public
information on how to apply under Article 6.
Up to now, the nature of the Article 6 ap-
plication procedure has been in effect a closely
guarded secret. No one who is not already “in the
loop” has really known who qualifies to apply un-
der Article 6 and such how an application can be
initiated.
How to Apply?
According to the Ministry’s letter to Grapevine,
applicants who wish their applications to be con-
sidered by Parliament under Article 6 should still
file the regular Article 5 application form with
the Ministry of Justice (not with Parliament).
This application is on the Ministry of Justice’s
website. All the normal supporting documents,
such as recommendations, should be included,
and the 10,000 ISK application fee presumably
must be paid. In addition, according to the min-
istry:
“A letter must be included with the appli-
cation requesting that the application be sent
to Parliament for consideration. The letter must
explain in detail the reason why the applicant
considers himself or herself in need of Icelandic
citizenship before fulfilling the regular condi-
tions. After receiving the comments of the police
and the Directorate of Immigration, as required
by law, the ministry forwards the application to
Parliament.”
As far as I know, this is the first public in-
formation that any governmental body has given
about how the Article 6 process works. It is dis-
appointing that this same information has not
been added to the Ministry of Justice website’s
page about applying for citizenship. That’s where
it belongs.
The ministry’s letter did not suggest any
deadlines for Article 6 applications, but the par-
liamentary vote on them normally takes place
twice a year, in May and December. In a press
release on May 3, the ministry said that it nor-
mally requests comments from the police and
the Directorate of Immigration the same day that
Article 6 applications are received. It did not
mention how long the subsequent parts of the
process normally take.
Can I Be Approved?
What is a good enough reason for wanting Icelan-
dic citizenship “before fulfilling the regular condi-
tions?” The short answer is that it’s all up to the
General Committee.
In the spring of 2006, a young woman from
Guatemala who is the girlfriend of the son of Jóní-
na Bjartmarz, then Minister of the Environment,
received citizenship by act of Parliament under
Article 6. The case caused a flurry of media at-
tention, particularly because the young woman
had lived in Iceland for only a year and a half, and
did not appear to have an unusually strong need
for Icelandic citizenship. (See Issue 9 for a full re-
port.)
This case suggests three hypotheses. One
is that the barrier for Article 6 applications is set
quite low and that anyone who just asks nicely
and has a halfway decent story -- more or less --
can receive citizenship by act of Parliament. An-
other is that the barrier is somewhat higher, and
that Jónína’s son’s girlfriend would, practically
speaking, never have been approved without
Jónína’s influence -- despite the repeated denials
that there was any influence. A third hypothesis is
that it doesn’t make much sense to ask how high
the barrier is, we should not read too much prec-
edent-setting value into any one case, and that
there isn’t really any established policy on who to
approve and who not.
From 2004 through mid-2007, Parliament
received 225 Article 6 applications and approved
124 of them, or 55%. I would not be surprised if
the number of applications increases in the wake
of the young woman from Guatemala’s success. It
will be fascinating to see what happens to the ap-
proval rate.
The Key Issue in the Jónína Bjartmarz Case
I have not seen any indication that Jónína Bjart-
marz did anything illegal in connection with her
son’s girlfriend’s citizenship application, but an
injustice did take place. Her son’s girlfriend took
advantage of information that was effectively priv-
ileged – even if not formally privileged – to receive
an important right from the Icelandic government.
At the same time, many others with perhaps a
more pressing need for that right were effectively
unable to ask for it, because they had no way of
knowing that they could. As Jónína recognized in
an interview in the July 5 issue of Mannlíf,
“... one can say that she had the right to try
applying just like anyone else. However, she bene-
fited, or perhaps in the last analysis suffered, from
the fact that I knew how things work and advised
her on how she could give it a try.”
“Just like anyone else” is the key issue. Actu-
ally, not everyone else was able to “give it a try”
in practice. I can sympathize with Bjartmarz’s
willingness to help her son’s girlfriend apply for
citizenship. But it would be a more noble use of
a parliamentarian’s time to work towards making
the same information available to everyone.
The Underlying Problems
Unfortunately, Bjartmarz seems not to be alone
among parliamentarians in having spent more
time promoting particular individuals’ applica-
tions under Article 6, than in making an effort to
make information about how the process works
available to all. On his blog site on July 16th, Min-
ister of Industry Össur Skarphéðinsson discussed
the case of a three-year-old Salvadoran girl living
in the West Fjords to whom he thinks Parliament
should grant citizenship under Article 6. It is tell-
ing that Skarphéðinsson presents the case as one
in which the little girl would need his interven-
tion in Parliament to tip the balance in her favour,
rather than one in which an honestly submitted
application on her behalf would be expected to
succeed.
Another noteworthy case is that of a foreign
scholar whose association with Björn Bjarnason
is documented in Bjarnason’s online diary, among
other sources. Bjarnason became Minister of Jus-
tice in 2003, and the scholar received Icelandic
citizenship under Article 6 in 2004. One cannot
help but wonder whether the idea for the scholar
to apply for citizenship came up in conversation
with Bjarnason. The scholar did not respond to
requests for comment.
Underlying the controversy surrounding Ar-
ticle 6 applications is that it has gotten much hard-
er to receive citizenship under Article 5, and also
for non-Europeans to receive Icelandic residence
permits and work permits. Speeding tickets can
delay your eligibility for citizenship, marrying too
young can jeopardize a residence permit applica-
tion, and dealing with the Directorate of Immigra-
tion has become more bureaucratic. Quick-fix
citizenship under Article 6 thus starts to become
more and more attractive to people who want to
ensure their security here on the island.
It is no secret that there are many problems
with both the terms and the administration of
Iceland’s citizenship and immigration laws. Many
people are lobbying for change. In the meantime,
I hope that clear information about the Article 6
process will put an end to the era in which the
facilitation of Icelandic citizenship has been a
privilege in the hands of the few who know how
the system works.
Text by Ian Watson
You Too Can be a Citizen
What is a good enough
reason for wanting Ice-
landic citizenship “be-
fore fulfilling the regular
conditions?” The short
answer is that it’s all up to
the General Committee.
The process of applying for citizenship to the Icelan-
dic Parliament is relatively simple. Photo by GAS