Namibian nationality law is regulated by the Constitution of Namibia, as amended; the Namibian Citizenship Act, and its revisions; and various international agreements to which the country is a signatory. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a national of Namibia. The legal means to acquire nationality, formal legal membership in a nation, differ from the domestic relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship. Nationality describes the relationship of an individual to the state under international law, whereas citizenship is the domestic relationship of an individual within the nation.
Commonwealth countries often use the terms nationality and citizenship as synonyms, despite their legal distinction and the fact that they are regulated by different governmental administrative bodies. Namibian nationality is typically obtained under the principle of jus soli, i.e. by birth in the territory, or jus sanguinis, i.e. by birth in Namibia or abroad to parents with Namibian nationality. It can be granted to persons with an affiliation to the country, or to a permanent resident who has lived in the country for a given period of time through naturalisation.
Acquiring Namibian nationality
Nationality can be obtained in Namibia at birth or later in life through naturalisation.
By birth
Typically, in Namibia, a combination of jus sanguinis and jus soli are used to determine nationality at birth. Those who are eligible include:
Persons born in Namibia whose parents are legal ordinary residents in the country and do not have diplomatic immunity and are not employed in the service of another government; Persons born in the country who would otherwise be stateless; or Persons born anywhere who have at least one parent who is Namibian, as long as the parents do not have diplomatic immunity.
By naturalisation
Naturalisation can be granted to persons who have resided in Namibia for a sufficient period of time to confirm they understand the customs and traditions of the country and the responsibilities of citizenship. General provisions are that applicants have good character and have had no convictions for offenses. Applicants must verify legal residency of a minimum of ten years. Besides foreigners meeting the criteria, other persons who may apply for naturalisation include:
The legal or customary spouse of a Namibian national after a residency period of ten years; Children of a naturalised Namibian; Adoptees of Namibian nationals automatically acquire nationality upon completion of a legal adoption; or Persons who have provided distinguished service to the state may qualify for honorary nationality.
Loss of nationality
Namibians are allowed to renounce their nationality, provided that comply with registration processes. The government may oppose during times of war. Nationals of origin cannot be deprived of their nationality. Naturalised persons can be denaturalised for obtaining another nationality; for committing serious crimes, disloyal acts, or crimes against the state or state security; for residing abroad for a continuous period of over two years without government permission; or for fraud, misrepresentation, or concealment in a naturalisation petition. Persons who have previously lost their Namibian naturalisation may repatriate as long as they have not acquired another nationality.
Dual nationality
Namibia prohibits dual nationality for naturalised persons. Though the Citizenship Act prohibits dual nationality, the High Court of Namibia issued rulings in 2008 and 2011 confirming that nationals of origin cannot be deprived of their nationality.
Commonwealth citizenship
A Namibian citizen is also a Commonwealth citizen by default, especially for those born on 21 March 1990 and after.
History
African people and European contact (1482–1866)
Early inhabitants of the region were San and Khoekhoe speakers, which included the Damara and Nama peoples. Between the ninth and fourteenth centuries Zambezi people pushed the early inhabitants into the Kalahari Desert and established decentralised chieftainships. Herero people moved into the central plateau, creating a centralised state; while Kavango and Ovambo peoples built clan-based kingdoms with centralised authority in the north. In 1482, the Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão landed at Cape Cross and five years later, his countryman Bartolomeu Dias landed at Lüderitz Bay. There was very little exploration of the interior of what is now Namibia, because of its inaccessible coastline. By the late 1500s, the Dutch began attacking Portuguese trading forts along the African coast. The Dutch made three official explorations through the territory in 1670, 1677, and 1793 to determine if there were persons with whom they could establish trading in the area or if the land was beneficial as a refueling and victualling area.
By the 1760s, Americans were whaling in the coastal waters but within two decades both the British and Dutch had instituted measures to prohibit American vessels from the coastal areas. Until the 1780s, coastal indigenous people largely did not have involvement with the rival commercial foreigners, but slowly began to engage in trade with them to acquire iron and tobacco. In 1792, the Dutch East India Company which had claimed the coastline two years earlier, took possession of Walvis Bay. It was seized by the British in 1796, who also claimed the other natural harbour on the coast, Angra Pequena. The first half of the nineteenth century saw the destabilisation of African communities with territorial disputes arising both internally among chieftainships and with foreigners. American, British, Finnish, and German missionaries established a trading post at Otijibingue from which they traded firearms for cattle and ivory. Africans exploited European rivalries and in turn, Europeans utilised African competitiveness for territory and resources to weaken their ties with each other and strengthen their own relationships. In an effort to unite the southern people, the Peace Treaty of Hoachanas was signed with leaders of the Herero and Nama peoples and followed by an agreement barring the sale of land or mining concessions to colonists. The deaths of the Herero leaders, Jonker Afrikaner and Tjamuaha by 1861, led to the overthrow of Nama leader Oaseb's authority and allowed Europeans to assume dominant roles in policy making.
British and German possession (1866–1919)
In 1866, Britain claimed the Penguin Islands and annexed them into the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. Twelve years later in 1878, Captain Richard C. Dyer claimed Walvis Bay and the surrounding area for Britain. In 1883, Adolf Lüderitz, merchant from Bremen, acquired a tract of land including Damaraland and Namaqualand from the native chief. The following year, the German Government authorised the colony, bordering Portuguese West Africa in the north, and the British Bechuanaland Protectorate in the east and the Cape Colony on the south, by declaring a protectorate of German South West Africa. Though the British government protested the German annexation, they did not take action, other than to annex Walvis Bay to the Cape Colony in 1884. That year, at the Berlin Conference, European powers agreed on the boundaries of South West Africa and endorsed the German possession of the colony.
Nationality in British South Africa
From the time of the Dutch Republic (1588–1795), belonging was based on birth in a Dutch city or province and could be acquired through marriage or application for admission. Its successor state, the Batavian Republic, established that inhabitants in the territory could acquire nationality by birth, and citizenship if they were born in Batavian territory and remained there for two years, or if they lived within the nation for ten years. The governmental form changed again in 1805, and in 1809 the Kingdom of Holland adopted the Napoleonic Code with adaptations for Holland. When the French Empire annexed the Dutch kingdom in 1810, the full French code was declared to apply to Dutch territory. Under its terms nationality was acquired at birth through descent from a father. Married women were legally incapacitated, making them legal dependents, and the nationality of a husband was automatically bestowed upon a wife. While the Netherlands was attempting to regain its independence from France, Britain moved against Dutch overseas possessions, and formally acquired the Cape of Good Hope under the terms of the Convention of London in 1814. British Nationality Acts did not extend beyond the bounds of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, meaning that under Britain's rules of conquest, laws in place at the time of acquisition remained in place until changed. As a new Civil Code for the Netherlands was not adopted until 1838, the law in place at acquisition was the Napoleonic Code.
In 1817, Charles Henry Somerset, the Governor General of the Cape of Good Hope, issued a decree that foreigners could be granted a deed of burghership, after having lived in the colony for five years and taking an oath of allegiance. Further laws on naturalisation, which did not vary overmuch from the 1817 decree, were passed for the Cape colony in 1856, 1861, and 1868, which were repealed by the consolidation and amendment of 22 August 1883. Under the 1883 Act, male foreigners could naturalise upon providing proof of good character and no record of conviction for serious crimes (or had been pardoned if he had a conviction) and taking an oath of allegiance. It also provided that foreign women who married a British subject of the colony, were considered to be a naturalized subject of the Cape Colony, as were minor children born within the colony to a naturalized parent. The 1883 Act was amended in 1889 and 1906.
In 1909, the South Africa Act created the Union of South Africa and Britain officially transferred the Penguin Islands and Walvis Bay to the self-governing territory of the British Crown. To standardize the requirements for naturalisation in the Cape Colony, Colony of Natal, Orange Free State and the Transvaal Colony, the Naturalisation of Aliens Act of 23 December 1910, replaced and repealed the individual acts of naturalisation which had previously been in place in those colonies. In 1911, at the Imperial Conference a decision was made to draft a common nationality code for use across the empire. Other than common law, there was no standard statutory law which applied for subjects throughout the realm, meaning different jurisdictions created their own legislation for local conditions, which often conflicted with the laws in other jurisdictions in the empire. Thus, a person who was naturalised in Canada, for example, would be considered a foreigner, rather than a British national, in Australia or South Africa. For example, from 1861 in the Cape Colony, foreign husbands who married British wives could naturalise based on their wife's residency in the colony.