Our South African Citizenship laws have changed somewhat over the last 15 years bringing forward two different kinds of procedures and processes to be followed where a South African citizen has, in fact, lost their South African citizenship. There are different exclusions that are applicable whether a foreign citizenship is acquired prior to October 1995 or post October 1995.
Obviously each individual set of facts needs to be investigated on a case by case basis.
Although our South African Citizenship Law does provide that where a foreign citizenship is acquired, South African citizenship will be lost as a result (in the majority of instances in any event) there are also provisions for the resumption of South African citizenship.
Apart from the actual loss of citizenship the important points raised in our South African Citizenship Act also relates to acquisition of citizenship and how it is indeed acquired. Citizenship by birth, by descent and by naturalisation all have their own procedures and processes that need to be followed in order to comply with the necessary as well.
Additional procedures such as the late registration of a foreign birth also entails a rather intricate procedure that needs to be dealt with by the Department of Home Affairs in order to become a South African citizen you need to prove you are tied to a South African citizen and this also depends upon how the relationship stems between the foreigner and the South African citizen.
Due to radical amounts of fraud within the Department of Home Affairs regarding citizenship applications, the Department of Home Affairs has severely tightened their control in respect of these kinds of applications and also the procedures that they follow in order to make the necessary applications.
This section of our website discusses all of the above in a bit more detail and provides the reader with a clear understanding of the correct path to be taken.
Please be advised that this should not be construed as legal advice as each individual case is most certainly unique and should be assessed on its specific facts. We would always suggest that you utilise our free assessment service offered under the citizenship section in order for us to provide a free assessment for you as to the way forward or send us an email at enquiries@immigration.org.za in order for us to do a proper assessment.