Nationality Law of 1924 Not a Bad Law Roumanian Minister of Justice Declares when Staatenlose Questi

The Nationality Law of 1924 was not a bad law, the Minister of Justice declared in the Chamber to-day, requiring only a few modifications.

The Jews first opted for other States, he alleged, and then they realised that Roumania was the real El Dorado, and they opted for Roumanian citizenship. No law can permit the admission of countless masses of new citizens, he added. All that can be done is to provide for the acquisition of citizenship by a small number.

The statement was made in reply to a question about the position of the Staatenlose in Bukovina put in the Senate by Senator Ebner, the President of the Club of Jewish Deputies, to the Ministers of the Interior and of Justice. Staatenlose in Bukovina have recently been called upon by the local authorities to produce their Roumanian citizenship papers or their foreign passports under pain of expulsion from the country, Senator Ebner complained. They are all people, he said, who opted for Roumanian citizenship years ago and cannot now be arbitrarily expelled. The Government must speed up the enactment of the promised new citizenship law, Senator Ebner urged, so that it should be possible for the Chamber to pass it before the end of the present session.

We are not satisfied with this answer, Senator Ebner declared, when the Minister had made his statement. The Jews opted for Roumanian citizenship before 1920, and that was their position when the Peace Treaties were concluded. Then came the law of 1924 which without any fault of theirs robbed them of their rights.

If you are not satisfied, the Minister of Justice rejoined, you should put your interpellation in greater detail.

The late Mr. Lucien Wolf repeatedly expressed his conviction that the 1924 Nationality Law was “a direct infraction of the Roumanian Minorities Treaty” and since June 1924 he was in constant negotiations with the Roumanian Government to obtain either its repeal or suspension. “Although the Roumanian Government have contested our view of the illegality of the Nationality Law”, he wrote in one of the reports of the Joint Foreign Committee, “they have made many definite promises that it should at least be so applied as not to deprive anyone of his national rights. These promises have not been fulfilled and to-day, in the Bukovina alone, the number of Jews who have been deprived of all national rights through the operation of the Nationalities Law is fourteen thousand, while in Transylvania and Bessarabia a large number are in the same situation. These are supplemented by many Christian inhabitants who are suffering in a like manner. At one time Mr. Lucien Wolf was thinking of bringing up the question in a form to secure a statement on the legality of the 1924 Roumanian Nationality Law from the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague.

Right up to the time of his death, Mr. Wolf made continuous efforts to secure the amendment of the Nationality Law, and in one of his later reports to the Board of Deputies he instanced as in the first place among the grievances of the Jews of Roumania the failure to amend the Nationality Law under which many thousands of Jews in the annexed provinces are still deprived of all nationality and reduced to the status of Staatenlose. The Joint Foreign Committee continues to be greatly concerned at the situation and the last report presented to the Board of Deputies by Mr. Rich, the present Secretary of the Joint Foreign Committee, also dealt with this question among other matters.