CYIL vol. 9 (2018)

JAN ONDŘEJ – MAGDA UXOVÁ CYIL 9 ȍ2018Ȏ to combine the acquisition of Czechoslovak citizenship with the right of domicile, because there was no institute of the right of domicile in the German Empire. Therefore, in the case of German citizens, the acquisition of citizenship was associated with a proper residence in the territory that became part of Czechoslovakia and was a former territory of the German Empire. Czechoslovakia acquired the territory of the Hlučín (Hultschin) region from the German Empire under the conditions of the Peace Treaty of Versailles. 33 The Constitutional Law. No. 236/1920 Coll. on the acquisition and loss of citizenship and the right of domicile in the Czechoslovak Republic resolved in its provisions other issues related to this subject, e.g. in § 2 there was a refutable legal presumption that persons who were born in Czechoslovakia are Czechoslovak citizens , unless it was shown that they acquired another nationality by birth. This was a refutable presumption that was valid until another citizenship of such a person had been proven for such person. This provision, which was supposed to have been a supportive regulation for the acquisition of Czechoslovak citizenship after the establishment of Czechoslovakia, also applied to the future, and thus the law of the Czechoslovak citizenship was based on the birth in Czechoslovakia, but only if persons could not be shown to have acquired another citizenship. Another interesting regulation is in the provision of § 17, according to which members of the Habsburg-Lorraine family could not acquire citizenship and home rights in the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic. Their former citizenship and right of domicile had disappeared. The members of the aristocratic family could not become citizens of Czechoslovakia, even though they had the right to domicile continuously, since no later than 1 January 1910, in the community that became part of the Czechoslovak Republic. Subsequently, the provisions of § 19 of the Constitutional Act on Citizenship served as an authorization for the Government to agree on details of the implementation of this constitutional law with the governments of the States concerned. On the basis of this authorization, the following bilateral international treaties were signed: the Treaty between the Czechoslovak Republic and Austria of 7 June 1920 No. 107/1921 Coll., the so-called Treaty between the Czechoslovak Republic and the German Empire of 29 June 1920 No. 308/1922 Coll. 34 , the Treaty between the Czechoslovak Republic and the Republic of Poland of 23 April 1925 No. 56/1926 Coll., and the Decision of the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris on Těšín, Orava and Spiš of 28 July 1920 No. 20/1925 Coll., which was the statement of the Allied and Associated Powers, but it was issued only on the basis of the agreement of the Polish and Czechoslovak governments in Spa on 10 July 1920. The period of the First Republic before the SecondWorldWar was associated with the rise of the fascist regime in Germany. After the declaration of the German Empire in 1933, there were persecutions and massive abandonment of political migrants in the territory of Germany and later Austria (the arrival of foreigners from Austria multiplied especially after 1938 after the so-called Anschluss of Austria, when the laws of the German Empire began to apply in Austria). It was a territory adjacent to Czechoslovakia, which at that time was considered a democratic state. Migrants were looking for a temporary shelter here, and for Czechoslovakia, they presented a big problem, as since 1900 there had been just under 1,700 people living here, and due to the influx of other refugees there were more than 20,000 people living there 33 Peace Treaty between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany, signed in Versailles on 28 June 1919, No. 217/1921 Coll. 34 Treaty between the Czechoslovak Republic and the Republic of Austria on Citizenship and Minority Protection, signed in Brno on 7 June 1920, No. 107/1921 Coll.

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