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  • Ethnic Citizenship in the S...
    Zorn, Jelka

    Citizenship studies, 20/5/1/, Letnik: 9, Številka: 2
    Journal Article

    This article presents some crucial and typical experiences of people who were erased from the Registry of Permanent Residents of the Republic of Slovenia in 1992. In the process of forming the new Slovenian state in 1991 (after the collapse of former Yugoslavia), the body of citizens was newly defined according to the principle of ius sanguinis. This means that ethnic Slovenians who until then were Yugoslav citizens automatically became Slovenian citizens. Permanent residents of Slovenia who ethnically originated in other republics of former Yugoslavia had to file an application to acquire Slovenian citizenship based on Article 40 of the Citizenship of the Republic of Slovenia Act. Approximately 0.9% of Slovenia's population (18,305 people) did not succeed in obtaining Slovenian citizenship because either they did not file an application or their application was rejected. These people were erased from the Registry of Permanent Residents by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on 26 February 1992. The Ministry carried out this secret erasure without any legal basis. The Aliens Act entered into force for the erased which then annulled all their previously acquired rights; legally and formally they were made equivalent to migrants who cross borders illegally. Thus, the people erased from the Registry of Permanent Residents were suddenly left without any rights: the right to a residence in Slovenia (in their homes with their families), the right to cross the state borders, and all other economic, social and political rights. The implementation of the erasure concerns the suspension of basic human rights, the annulment of the principles of a legal state and the production of redundant people. The author argues that the erasure from the Registry of Permanent Residents is constitutive of Slovenian citizenship: the erasure established certain power relations in society and a certain type of democracy.