Seychellois nationality law is regulated by the Constitution of Seychelles, as amended; the 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 Seychelles. 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.
In Britain and thus the Commonwealth of Nations, though the terms are often used synonymously outside of law, they are governed by different statutes and regulated by different authorities. Seychellois nationality is typically obtained under the principal of jus sanguinis, i.e. by birth in Seychelles or abroad to parents with Seychellois 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 or registration.
Acquisition of nationality
Nationality can be acquired in the Seychelles at birth or later in life through naturalisation or registration. Naturalisation typically applies to a spouse or a child who is processed with a parent's application; whereas, registration is required for people whose parents were born in Seychelles, or those with special skill or circumstances including investors, students and skilled prioritized workers.
By birth
Children born in the Seychelles to at least one parent who is Seychellois acquire nationality at birth.
By naturalisation
Naturalisation can be granted to persons who have resided in the territory for a sufficient period of time to confirm they understand the customs and traditions of Seychelles and are integrated into the society. General provisions are that applicants must pass a citizenship test with 80 per cent accuracy and that have no criminal convictions resulting in a sentence of one year or more. Applicants must typically have resided in the country for fifteen years. Besides foreigners meeting the criteria, other persons who may be naturalised include:
Children legally adopted by a Seychellois parent, at the time of completion of a legal adoption automatically derive Seychellois nationality; Minor children can be included in their parent's naturalisation petition; The legal spouse of a Seychellois national after ten years of marriage and a five-year residency;
By registration
Persons who do not typically meet the requirements for naturalisation may be registered under special circumstances if they have passed a citizenship test with 80 per cent accuracy and that have no criminal convictions resulting in a sentence of one year or more. They must have been a legal resident for a period of at least fifteen years or permanent resident for ten years and have been physically present in the country for a minimum of thirteen years, without being continuously absent for a period of one year. Registration under these special circumstances is at the discretion of the President of Seychelles. Those who qualify are:
Children born abroad to at least one parent who is Seychellois, after completing and administrative registration process and being resident in Seychelles for at least two years; Persons who have lived and completed secondary education in Seychelles, who have returned to work in Seychelles after graduating from university abroad, or who have been a permanent resident in the country for five years; or Persons who have performed distinguished or meritorious service to the nation may be allowed to gain nationality at the discretion of the President of Seychelles without meeting conditions. Persons who have an exceptional ability in the arts, business, economics, education, law, science, or sport; Persons who hold a degree which allows them to significantly contribute to development in Seychelles; Persons who have made substantial contributions to the nation; Persons who were married to a Seychellois and had children or who had no children but the spouse has deceased; or Persons who have invested a minimum of $1,000,000 US in a business in Seychelles, have the ability to be self-sufficient, and have resided in the country for a minimum of eleven years.
Loss of nationality
Seychellois nationals can renounce their nationality pending approval by the state. Seychellois of origin may not lose their nationality. Naturalised persons may be denaturalised in Seychelles for disloyalty to the state; for committing crimes, such as drugs offences, piracy, terrorism or treason, against the state or state security; for ordinary serious crimes; or for fraud, false representation, or concealment in a naturalisation application. Persons who previously had nationality and renounced it for socio-economic reasons may repatriate after re-establishing residency and passing both the citizenship test with 80 percent accuracy and a background check confirming no imprisonments of more than one year.
Dual nationality
Since 1993, Seychelles has allowed nationals to hold dual nationality as long as their dual status is recorded with the government.
Commonwealth citizenship
Seychellois citizens are also Commonwealth citizens by default.
History
Arabic manuscripts written in the ninth and tenth centuries describe the Rukh Islands, which are believed to denote the Seychelles. In 1502, the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama sighted the islands naming the largest island group in the archipelago the Seven Sisters and the Amirante Islands (Ilhas do Almirante) to commemorate his second voyage to India. For several decades Portuguese navigators explored the islands and in 1598 established a settlement, though it failed. British explorers scouted the islands in 1609 and a French expedition was launched by Lazare Picault from Île de France (now Mauritius) in 1742 to map the islands. The cartographers named the islands as Îles de la Bourdonnais, after the Mauritian governor Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais. Picault led a second voyage to explore the islands in 1744. In 1756, Corneille Nicholas Morphey, under orders from the French East India Company claimed the islands on behalf of the company and the king, naming them the Îles de la Séchelles in honour of Viscount Jean Moreau de Séchelles, Comptroller of the Finance during the reign of Louis XV. Other than transient sailors, shipwrecked crew, or pirates, when the French claimed the islands in 1756, they were not permanently inhabited.
French period (1756–1814)
In 1768, Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne sailed to Praslin Island to scout for timber and took possession of the island. He named the Curieuse and La Digue Islands off the coast of Praslin after his ships. From 1769, Pierre Poivre led numerous failed attempts to establish colonies in the islands. In 1770, Henri Charles François Brayer du Barré organised fifty persons, including both black and white colonists, from the Île de Bourbon to establish the first settlement on Ste. Anne Island. Though they struggled with lack of supplies and famine, the colony managed to survive and in 1775, sued Brayer du Barré for mismanaging the colony. In 1771, a planter named Antoine Nicolas Benoît Gillot established the first settlement on Mahé. Pierre Hanguard a Norman and former soldier of the French East India Company had obtained a land concession on Mahé around the same time as Gillot. Becoming a rival of Brayer du Barré, he later moved to Ste. Anne and took over the colony.
The Ancien Régime of France developed a system of feudal allegiance in which subjects were bound together by a scheme of protection and service tied to land ownership. Possession of land was typically tied to military and court service and omitted women because they could not perform those obligations. Thus, French nationality also derived from place of birth in French territory, until the nineteenth century, but under feudal law married women were subjugated to the authority of their husbands under coverture. Though attempts were made to codify the common law of the colonies in 1716, 1738, 1758, and between 1761 and 1768, none were successful. Having separate codes for the colonies and metropole was a characteristic of the empire and created little unity and standardisation in French law. Thus, the French Constitution of 1791, which gave legitimacy to the French Revolution and human rights protections by incorporating the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, did not include any of the colonies or possessions of France in Africa, Asia, or the Americas.
The abolition of slavery in 1794 granted French nationality to all men in the French colonies, but the reestablishment of slavery in 1802, made the status of colonial subjects confusing. The 1802 coup d'état of Napoleon Bonaparte rolled back gains made during the French Revolutionary period, re-establishing the law and customs in effect before the Revolution of 1789. In 1805, the Napoleonic Code, the French Civil Code, was implemented in France, the French Antilles, and French Guiana. The provisions contained in it applied only to the white French residing in the colonies. Under the Civil Code, women were legally incapacitated and paternal authority was established over children. Upon marriage, a woman automatically acquired the same nationality as her spouse. Illegitimate children were barred from inheritance and nationality could only be transmitted through a father. Conflicts between France and Britain which began in 1803, extended to their colonies. Britain made plans to capture the Mascarene Islands, taking Rodrigues Island in 1809, Île de Bourbon in July 1810, and on 3 December 1810, accepted the surrender for the Île de France. Under the terms of the capitulation, French custom, language, laws, property and religion were to remain in force. In April 1811, Captain Philip Beaver arrived in Seychelles and claimed the islands for Britain as a prize of war.
British colony (1814–1976)
Seychelles was formally acquired by Britain in 1814 under the terms of the Treaty of Paris and was made a dependency of British Mauritius. In August 1903, Letters Patent were issued making the territory a separate Crown Colony. In Britain, allegiance, in which subjects pledged to support a monarch, was the precursor to the modern concept of nationality. The crown recognised from 1350 that all persons born within the territories of the British Empire were subjects. Those born outside the realm — except children of those serving in an official post abroad, children of the monarch, and children born on a British sailing vessel — were considered by common law to be foreigners. Marriage did not affect the status of a subject of the realm, except that under common law, single women, including divorcées, were not allowed to be parents thus their children could not derive nationality maternally and were stateless unless legitimated by their father. Nationality laws passed by the British Parliament were extended only to the Kingdom of Great Britain, and later the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.