Sierra Leonean nationality law is regulated by the Constitution of Sierra Leone, 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 Sierra Leone. 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. Sierra Leonean nationality is based on descent from a person who is Negro-African, regardless of whether they were born in Sierra Leone, jus soli, or abroad to a Sierra Leonean, jus sanguinis. The Negro clause was inserted based upon the founding of the colony as a refuge for former slaves to prevent economically powerful communities from obtaining political power. 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.
Acquisition of nationality
Nationality can be acquired in Sierra Leone at birth or later in life through naturalisation.
By birth
Prior to 2006, persons born in Sierra Leone could only acquire nationality at birth from their Negro-African father or a paternal grandparent. The only way they could acquire nationality through a mother was in the event that they would otherwise be stateless. In 2006, children born in Sierra Leone, but not children born abroad, could acquire nationality from their mothers if both the child and the mother or maternal grandparent were Black African and had been born in Sierra Leone. Since 2017, children born abroad are also allowed to derive nationality from their Sierra Leonean mothers. Current Sierra Leonean legislation makes no provision for foundlings or orphans discovered in the territory, or those who would otherwise be stateless to acquire nationality. Those who acquire nationality at birth are children born anywhere to at least one parent or grandparent who was of Negro African descent and was born in Sierra Leone.
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 Sierra Leone and are integrated into the society. General provisions are that applicants must have sufficient knowledge of a language indigenous to the country, be of good character, and capable of making contributions to the growth of Sierra Leone. Persons who are not Negro-African applicants must typically have resided in the country for fifteen years; whereas Black-Africans are required to have a continuous residency of eight years. Applicants must be interviewed by administrators from the Criminal Investigation Department, Immigration Headquarters, National Revenue Authority, and a panel composed of the attorney general, head of immigration and ministers of foreign affairs, justice, and trade. Recommendations from these interviews are forwarded to the cabinet and then final approval is made by the President of Sierra Leone. There is no appeal process if an application is refused. Besides foreigners meeting the criteria, other persons who may be naturalised include:
Juveniles legally adopted by a Sierra Leonean male, at the time of completion of a legal adoption may apply to naturalise as Sierra Leonean; Minor children (under age twenty-one) can be included in their parent's naturalisation petition; Children born abroad to Sierra Leonean mothers who were Negro Africans, but whose fathers were not Negro African, as long as their mother continuously maintained Sierra Leonean nationality; Persons of Negro-African descent who were born in Sierra Leone, to a parent who did not possess diplomatic immunity or was classed as an enemy alien, by virtue of continuously residing in the country for at least eight years; or The wife of a Sierra Leonean upon marriage to a Sierra Leonean national or a person of Black-African descent who was born in Sierra Leone after 18 April 1971.
Loss of nationality
Sierra Leonean nationals can renounce their nationality pending approval by the state. Sierra Leoneans of native origin may not lose their nationality. Naturalised persons may be denaturalised in Sierra Leone for disloyalty to the state; for committing crimes against the state or state security; for ordinary serious crimes, especially involving fraud or dishonesty; or for residing outside the country for an extended period of time, typically more than seven years. Persons who previously had nationality and lost it because of past prohibitions for dual nationality may repatriate.
Dual nationality
Since 2006, Sierra Leone has allowed nationals to hold dual nationality.
History
Though no large states developed in the area, chieftainships formed the basis of society and neighbors networked with and interacted for trade, protection and religious rites. Among the peoples whose ancestry were indigenous to present-day Sierra Leone are the Bullom, Kissi, and Krim peoples. In 1364, Jehan li Roanois (alternately called Jean de Rouen), a French merchant and explorer from Normandy, visited Sierra Leone and traveled down to the Gold Coast. The following year, French explorers returned and established a chain of trading stations as far south as the Senegal River. These were abandoned between 1410 and 1413 because of situations in France, including the 14th century plague and Hundred Years' War. From the fifteenth century, Mande-speaking peoples invaded the region, intermarrying with the original inhabitants creating the ethnic groups of the Loko, Mende, and Vai peoples. In 1461, Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra sailed to the West African coast, stopping to get water at a place he named Sierra Leone, meaning lion mountain for its rugged appearance. The Portuguese had established a trading fort along the coast by 1495.
In 1505, the Temne people came south from French Guinea into the northern part of Sierra Leone, attacking the Çapez (also known as Sapis), Limba, and Loko people residing there. The Temne conquered and subjugated settlements to the south until they encountered an impenetrable resistance from the Susu people in the northwest and the Mende to the southeast. By the sixteenth century, chieftainships in the region were engaged in the slave trade and had begun to lease land to European slave traders. British trading activities were irregular in the area until 1638, when the charter was renewed for the African Company and a factory site was granted them by the Temne chief Borea. They first settled on Tasso Island, in the Sierra Leone River and then established a headquarters on Bunce Island about eighteen miles from what is now Freetown. From there, by 1651, they began to branch out opening facilities along the Sherbro River and founded Jamaica Town near present-day Bonthe, on Sherbro Island. By the 1650s, Sierra Leone was a regular port of call for British ships to access fresh water and they began negotiating agreements with local chiefs to establish trade.
In 1662, the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa took over the operations of the financially failing Africa Company. An attack by the Dutch during the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1664, destroyed all of the British trading forts. When they were returned to Britain, at the end of hostilities by the 1667 Treaty of Breda, but the company was unable to rebuild. It sold the rights to the Royal African Company in 1672. The new company immediately rebuilt the facilities on Bunce Island and at Jamaica Town, but converted the trading post on Tasso to a plantation and sanatorium for the soldiers who operated in Bunce. The abolition of the Royal African Company's monopoly in 1697, left the trading stations susceptible to attacks by the French in 1704, 1719, and 1720. The posts were severely damaged and abandoned by the Company in 1728. During the time that the Royal African Company was operating, the firm of Grant, and Oswald provisioned the trading stations. When the company abandoned Bunce Island, Sargent and his partners purchased the factory there in 1748, repaired it, and continued to use it to trade in timber. They expanded their operations to Batts, Bobs, Tasso, and Tumbu Islands and along the banks of the river, eventually becoming involved in the slave trade. The firm operated through the end of the eighteenth century.
African resettlement schemes (1787–1808)
At the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783, Black soldiers who had fought on the side of the British were sent to the Bahamas, England, and Nova Scotia to be freed. Many of these freedmen ended up poor and destitute. In 1786 Granville Sharp published a plan to resettle these former soldiers in Sierra Leone. He proposed that the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor, a humanitarian aid society, sponsor a colony. After purchasing a plot of land on the Peninsula of Sierra Leone from the local chiefs, 364 one-acre lots were laid out on the southern side of the river and distributed to colonists in 1787. Illness, deaths of their leaders, a lack of supplies, and threats from native inhabitants caused the colonists to desert the site in 1789. The St. George's Bay Company organised with plans to rescue the settlers and establish a commercial trading venture with the colony. Alexander Falconbridge, the agent for the company set out in 1790 and collected the colonists he could find on Bobs and Bunce Islands. He resettled the sixty-four colonists at Granville Town, after purchasing the land from the local chiefs.
Incorporated in 1791, the St. George's Bay Company became the Sierra Leone Company and was approached by Thomas Peters, a British loyalist and Black soldier who had been resettled in Nova Scotia. Unhappy with the climate there, he asked if he and fellow persons who had been sent to Nova Scotia could be resettled in Sierra Leone. As a result, 1,196 people left from Nova Scotia and arrived in Sierra Leone in 1792. Sixty-five of the passengers died en route, but arrived to found Freetown (initially Free Town) on 16 March 1792. By 1799, the settlers were discontented with the rule of the Sierra Leone Company and broke into open rebellion, appointing their own judges and refusing to pay rent to the company. That year the Sierra Leone Company drafted a charter, to reduce the authority of the police, known as Hundredors and Tythingmen, limiting them to the role of constables. While the police were to be elected by the colonists, the Company retained the right to veto candidates. The charter also established a court system, governor and council, and a local militia.
At the end of the Second Maroon War (1795–1796) in Jamaica, Britain deported many of those who had participated in the revolt to Nova Scotia. By 1799, a decision was made to transport the Maroons from Halifax to Sierra Leone. They arrived the following year and were settled in Granville Town. The Maroons immediately joined the British militia in suppressing the rebelling colonists, crushing the unrest in 1800. Failing to generate enough income from trade to expand and support the colony, or protect it from raids of the native tribes, and the looming British law abolishing the slave trade, in 1807, the Sierra Leone Company asked to be released from its charter and for the government to take over the administration of the colony.
British colony and protectorate (1808–1961)