Application of Mauritian Citizenship by Descent

Here's some information from the PMO's website.

BY DESCENT
A person born outside Mauritius is a citizen of Mauritius under section 20(3) and 23 of the Constitution if either of his parents is a citizen of Mauritius by birth.

If your father was born in Mauritius, then you qualify.

Thanks for the prompt response Nadeem.
My concern was that once he had South African citizenship the opportunity would fall away.
So I would not need him to get his NID card before I apply myself?
Or would I have alot more chance of getting my citizenship granted if I applied once he has received his?

Thanks again

Lot more chance to that when he has his citizenship because it states that your parents should be a citizen of Mauritius. In your case he was Mauritian by birth and lost it. Therefore once he does the resumption, he again goes back to his initial status.... Therefore you can piggy-back on this :-)

Excellent, thank you!

Hello!
Hopefully this will be of use to you as i've just this week submitted my application for citizenship via descent, whilst on holiday here. The process was relatively straight forward and took in total approx 3 hours of queuing / discussions with relevant officials before fornally submitting the application. So here goes.

The only documentation i was asked to submit were the birth certificates of both my parents, my birth certificate and a copy of the first 5 pages of my passport.

Re your fathers birth certificate, you will be asked to submit a more upto date version which includes an official stamp. The office is a 5 min walk from the PMO (apologies i don't have the address) and you need to purchase a RS25 stamp in advance from the post office next door. The clark will then search through various records and then print out accordingly.  In  total this took about an hour to complete.

2) i then attended the supreme court to have my application witnessed by a judge. This took all of 10 minutes at a cost of RS 1,000.

3) Back to the PMO to submit the various papers along with a fee of RS 2,000. Was then informed it will take upto 1 yr to be reviewed before a citizenship certificate is issued which then grants you the right to apply for an ID card thereafter. If you have a family member residing in Mauritius they will be able to collect your certificate on your behalf, with a balance of RS 15,000

I suggest you and your dad get his birth certificate printed and stamped, make your way to court to get your application witnessed and then proceed to the PMO.  That way you will be back on the beach in time for lunch!

Good luck!

mauritian_spurs wrote:

Hello!
Hopefully this will be of use to you as i've just this week submitted my application for citizenship via descent, whilst on holiday here. The process was relatively straight forward and took in total approx 3 hours of queuing / discussions with relevant officials before fornally submitting the application. So here goes.

The only documentation i was asked to submit were the birth certificates of both my parents, my birth certificate and a copy of the first 5 pages of my passport.

Re your fathers birth certificate, you will be asked to submit a more upto date version which includes an official stamp. The office is a 5 min walk from the PMO (apologies i don't have the address) and you need to purchase a RS25 stamp in advance from the post office next door. The clark will then search through various records and then print out accordingly.  In  total this took about an hour to complete.

2) i then attended the supreme court to have my application witnessed by a judge. This took all of 10 minutes at a cost of RS 1,000.

3) Back to the PMO to submit the various papers along with a fee of RS 2,000. Was then informed it will take upto 1 yr to be reviewed before a citizenship certificate is issued which then grants you the right to apply for an ID card thereafter. If you have a family member residing in Mauritius they will be able to collect your certificate on your behalf, with a balance of RS 15,000

I suggest you and your dad get his birth certificate printed and stamped, make your way to court to get your application witnessed and then proceed to the PMO.  That way you will be back on the beach in time for lunch!

Good luck!

Was your father continuously in possession of his Mauritian citizenship. If I'm not wrong Dayn's dad lost his Mauritian status, and is now applying for resumption. The dad has a Mauritian birth certificate but is no longer registered as Mauritian citizen.

Is your case similar? Would be useful to know.

Correct, my dad has always been in possession of his citizenship, but as you have pointed out, it should be straightforward for Dyan to piggy back off his dads application. Though this may mean him having to wait another year or so before being able to as applications for resumption take upto a year to be considered!

Thanks so much for all the input guys, very much appreciated and will come in great use! Either way I think its best I be patient and wait for my dad get his asap and then start my application process from then on. Will update you guys once there has been developments.

Hi,

I basically followed the same procedure as Mauritian_spurs, with 2 different aspects;
I didn't have to go to the supreme court AND
my mother (born in 1952 in Mauritius had regained her nationality in 2009 after more than 30 years.

I applied in Nov 2016 and it took 14 months before the PMO sent a letter to say the certificate was ready. In fact first the 15.000 Rs had to be paid (by anyone appointed) and about 10 days later the certifacte could be collected (in person).

Same day I went to apply for the National Identity Card aka NIC.
Application took 30 min (I got lucky with the queues I guess ;-) ) and the card can be collected after 7-10 days. In person because they your fingerprint to collect.

The day I collected the NIC, I went to the immigration office to apply for the Mauritiian passport.
Application took about 1 hour, passport was ready to collect after 4 working days.

Hope this helps a bit. I just can't remember all the papers I needed but that can be found on the website of the PMO.

Good luck with the application

Hey Andy, thanks for the info, sounds like a very similar situation.
Just curious has to how you applied to the PMO in the first place? Was it all done through documentation found on the PMO website and then did you mail that through with copies of your mother's documents?
Cheers

I knew I had to go to the PMO through my family living there but all the info I used came from the website. I was in Mauritius at the time of application, so I went to the PMO myself with the original documents from my mum and the certified translated documents I had from myself. They only keep the regular copies from these anyway.

Just a quick update.
This morning my dad completed his application for resumption of citizenship at the PMO. All went smoothly and now its a waiting game till all has been approved.
Pity these things take so long as I will be in Mauritius for 3 weeks this Dec/Jan, ideal time to get my application kicked off but a decision on my fathers application wouldn't have been made by then.

Thanks once again for all the input given above.

Regards

Question: My husband qualifies to apply for citizenship by descent as his dad was a citizen at the time of his birth in South Africa in 1972. His dad became a South African citizen shortly after my husband's birth and has subsequently passed away. Can my husband apply for citizenship by descent in this instance as his dad obviously can't reinstate his own citizenship? And what does the PMO take into consideration with such applications? Is it a given that if he meets the qualifying criteria he would get it, or does the PMO consider other things, such as qualification and income?

Hi all,

Small speedbump it seems! So my dad's application was submitted 2months ago without incident and we wait to get hear more back from that in the coming weeks & months.

However it now seems that I in fact will not be eligible to apply for citizenship through him. Eventhough both of his parents as well as my father were born in Mauritius, due to the fact that they left for South Africa when he was a minor, he automatically renounced his citizenship and therefore at the time of my birth he no longer had citizenship in Mauritius. This apparently rules out my chances of applying for citizenship eventhough some similar cases above state otherwise.
Very disappointing.

If anyone can shed further light to this that might suggest otherwise then I would love to hear from you as I am traveling there next week.

Hi

He may either fall  under article 14 or 15 depending on what he has put on his application to resume his citizenship : 1968-1995 are crucial years as far as naturalization in a foreign country is concerned .

http://dha.pmo.govmu.org/English/Docume … ACT(2).pdf

There has been amendments over the years  and you will have to look for them

Hi External, thank you for that link, I do not completely understand but I will read through the different articles.
To confirm, I have all original documents showing that he was born on 7 October 1952 and became a South African citizen by virtue of naturalisation on 16 July 1968.

Not sure if this clarifies anything further but as I said I will read through the link you shared as I see you state 1968 was a critical year.
Thanks

Hi

When you dad applied to resume his citizenship , did he mention that he is a non-resident of the island and plan to stay away from the island?

If that's the case, this could be one of the reasons.

I'm not entirely sure but I have asked the guys who helped with the application.

Hi Andy_dw, sorry to come back to a post after so long but I wanted to ask, when did you apply for your citizenship? As mentioned that our situations are quite similar, both parents born in !952, lost citizenship and then regained it, I am very curious in your case.

Still waiting feedback from the resumption of my dad's citizenship application but am very worried that I wont be eligible.

Also, did your mother remain in Mauritius after 2009?

Thanks

@mauritian_spurs hi there, just wondering if you received your citizenship?  was it within 1 year as anticipated?

Hi there, unfortunately no not as yet.

Still don't even have the clarity yet on whether I am even eligible or not.

Just recently ramped it up a bit with another source of legal advice based on the island so hoping to get much more info soon.

Cheers

Hello rostomc,

Welcome to expat.com!

mauritian_spurs  has unfortunately been inactive for a while. If you have other questions, I advise you to start your own thread on the Mauritius forum.

Cheers,

Yoginee

Expat.com team

@Dayn Hi there

So in a case while you're waiting for it, are you able to work and live in Mauritius?

I was told i don't not need to apply for citizenship as i automatically qualified for it and i have to just take my parents birth certificate and ID's with my own docs to apply for my passport.