VILNIUS, June 21, BNS–Legislative amendments paving the way for Litvaks, i.e. Jews of Lithuanian origin, and their descendants who left the country in the interwar period to restore their citizenship rights, should be submitted to the Lithuanian Seimas (parliament) Tuesday.

Amendments to the Law on Citizenship have been drafted by the European Affairs Committee.

According to the amendments, people who left Lithuania prior to March 11, 1990, except those who changed their place of residence within the territory of the former Soviet Union after June 15, 1940, should have their citizenship rights restored.

The Law on Citizenship allows people who left Lithuania before March 11, 1990, to hold dual citizenship. The Migration Department and Lithuanian courts, however, recently began rejecting applications for restoration of citizenship rights to people who left Lithuania between 1918 and 1940.

In rejecting their citizenship applications, migration specialists refer to case law which says citizenship can be restored only to people who left Lithuania before restoration of independence in 1990 for political reasons, resistance to occupational regimes or persecution by those regimes. They claimed Jews were not persecuted in independent Lithuania in the interwar years.

According to figures from the Migration Department, ten Litvaks were refused citizenship in 2014 and 76 in 2015. Ninety-seven received negative decisions in the first quarter of this year.