Nacionalidad / Citizenship: Legal Uruguayan

It is amazing, at times, to witness legal and historical justifications for mistakes and injustices offered by those trained neither in the law nor in history. In fact, those trained in other disciplines sometimes stray into seeking to cloak excuses in both law and history without clearly understanding either.

I am grateful that we, as Uruguayans, are committed to the truth and clearing up these misunderstandings, together, wherever we find them.

I read yesterday about a mistaken justification for the current practice of placing the “nation of birth” of legal citizens in the passport field for “nationality.” This is despite the fact that not all legal citizens have such a nationality from a country of birth and despite the fact that OACI, the organization that standardizes passports, allows “citizenship” to be placed in the nationality field.

Listing the “nationality/citizenship” of Uruguayan legal citizens as “Uruguayan legal citizens” does not require any inquiry into who is and who is not a “national” of Uruguay. The English language controlling standards already indicate the field is for citizenship. I’ll explain more on that topic below as we explore why there might be so many mistakes in Uruguayan practice concerning the issuance of correct passports today.

So why would anyone in Uruguay defend the status quo of issuing passports to legal citizens of Uruguay that violate international standards and deviate from compliance with international human rights claim the DNIC must continue to do so? Let us try to understand in good faith and address the errors embedded in such a view with a willing intent to solve the problem together.

First, the author of the particular letter I referenced indicates, with obvious discomfort, that the current legal interpretation of the regulation granting passports allows the processing of the Uruguayan Passport before obtaining the Civic Credential. The author adds one cannot “exercise citizenship” until a legal citizen has that Civic Credential.

This is a mistake made vital by the omission of several words. It would be correct to say that a legal citizen cannot exercise certain rights of citizenship until obtaining a Civic Credential, but getting a passport is not one of those rights for legal citizens. Legal citizens are citizens the moment they are declared such by the Electoral Court.

Outstanding Uruguayan Constitutional scholars have explained that one becomes a legal citizen through the act of receiving a carta of citizenship. One such scholar makes abundantly clear that Uruguayan legal citizens are “citizens” immediately and must simply wait to “exercise the rights of citizenship,” that is, to vote, and even longer to hold office. But receiving a passport is not such a delayed right of citizenship. It is immediate.

Second, the author of this particular letter defending the current practice of the DNIC admits that “Uruguayan legal citizen” was recorded in the nationality field of all Uruguayan passports issued from the first common passport until “1997”, but claims this practice was somehow more justified in the past and throughout Uruguayan history prior to 1997 because  “the interpretation of the legislation was more rigorous than today, as the passport was issued after processing the Civic Credential and thoroughly checking the voting records from electoral events to ensure that the person had not been removed from the electoral roll.”

Whether accurate or not, and we can briefly point out some of the mistakes later, the claims are irrelevant to the question of whether legal citizen passports are issued correctly. Despite the author’s personal opinion that issuing passports prior to receiving a Civic Credential is somehow wrong, or untrustworthy, the Manual de Documento de Identidad y Pasaporte Electrónico published in 2018, indicates on page 86 that a Civic Credential is not required to obtain a passport within the first three years of citizenship (because it would be impossible to obtain under Uruguayan law). The Civic Credential is necessary for a legal citizen to renew his or her passport (because, by that time, it can be obtained).

Third, the author claims that the change from “Uruguayan legal citizen” to the status of “foreigner” on passports was somehow related to the adoption of the MRZ on passports, that zone at the bottom of the page with letters, numbers, and symbols, allowing the passport to be easily scanned for what is called machine reading. In fact, the author claims that the first Uruguayan passport with the MRZ code was issued in 1998. It was not and that claim is made in mistake. The nationality field on Uruguayan passports was changed in 1994, and Uruguayan legal citizens were labeled as foreigners on those passports issued far in advance of the introduction of the MRZ.

Fourth, the author of this missive indicates that Uruguay implemented the new MRZ requirements in OACI Document 9303 on standardization in “strict compliance” with them. Again, this is clearly mistaken and inaccurate.

What is that not accurate? The author himself tells us why.

“For Legal Citizens, the nationality of the country of origin was recorded” in the nationality field and codes. I repeat the author claims strict compliance with Document 9303 because Uruguay itself decides what nationality its legal citizens are, without consulting these other nations in which they were born to see if it is true, and the just places that assumed nationality on international identification. 

Clearly, the author fails to realize that the nationality field is actually for a “nationality” and that the majority of nations on earth do not grant nationality simply by being born in a nation. This must clearly represent a failure to understand what “nationality” is and the proper role of Uruguay in determining “nationality” on behalf of other nations. To be clear, Uruguay cannot determine for other nations who is and who is not a national of that foreign nation. That is a conceit that I do not believe other nations would appreciate. Uruguay would not appreciate other nations designating who are “Uruguayan nationals” based on laws of descent that do not exist in Uruguay but exist in those other nations.

Fifth, the author includes irrelevant information about the biometric data now embedded in passports and unrelated information on what belongs in each MRZ code field on the passports. The information the author uses to fill space is both true and completely beside the point. It is added almost as if it was placed there simply to confuse those only casually familiar with this subject. When seeking to use the standards to support his point that Uruguayan legal citizens should be listed with such random and unverified foreign nationalities the author makes one odd confession: “It is crucial that our documents clearly reflect the corresponding nationality” of the passport holder. But we have already clearly established that nation of birth has absolutely no bearing, legally, on whether a legal citizen is or ever has been a national of the nation of birth and, in addition, that whether such a person is a national of a nation of birth is far outside the scope of Uruguay’s authority to determine.

Clearly, the DNIC and the Ministry of the Interior will work to correct the dissemination and use of such mistaken information. It is vital that lawyers, especially those trained in comparative and international law, help all of us comply with international law. Civil society and scholars are attempting to correct the historical record, and information on the true history of the Uruguayan passport and the correct dates is available publicly. We can have faith that Uruguay will correct incorrect information based on misinterpretations.

But we also need to ensure that true technical experts are the ones making the decisions. OACI recently issued a document called TAG/TRIP/4 Flimsy No. 02, dated October 12, 2023, which clarified again that Document 9303-3, Section 7.1 notes that it is an error when “MRZ citizenship incorrectly reports the country of birth rather than citizenship.” Further, the recent publication explores the fact that English is the official language of the standards, and the word used in English for what goes in this field is citizenship.

It is helpful to be able to explore the places we all agree and those areas in which we can see clear misunderstandings and misinterpretations. I have faith that everyone in the Uruguayan State wishes to work together to issue internationally acceptable passports for legal citizens that do not contain what are, in effect, random, assumed, and often incorrect “nationalities.” The simple solution already provided to Uruguay is that the field is for “citizenship”.