Turkish Bar Association Calls for Abolition of CIP, Files Case in Supreme Court

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The Turkish Union of Bar Association has asked the Council of State, the country’s supreme administrative court, to end the country’s citizenship by investment program, which the association says is “lacking any legal foundation”.

The program, which in just a few years since opening has brought Turkey several billion worth of foreign direct investment, as well as much-needed foreign currency reserves, today raised its minimum investment requirement from US$250,000 to US$400,000.

The Association maintains that amendments to the CIP by presidential decree is unconstitutional because the country’s Citizenship Law and the regulations thereto pertaining don’t expressly allow for the granting of citizenship through investments.

 “The Turkish Republic’s constitution urges that the conditions for attaining citizenship should be regulated through the law,” reads the statement. “There is no regulation in the (related) law, which states that […] Turkish citizenship can be obtained through investment made in foreign currency.” 

The Association characterized citizenship as expressing “a legal and political bond and commitment to the state,” and argued that conferring on it a particular financial value “has made the concept of citizenship abstract and alienated from its essence.”

This latter argument, which is a moral one, echoes sentiments expressed by CBI opponents more broadly; citizenship is somehow more than a legal status and should not be commoditized.

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