Many fear that holding dual nationality will continue to allow officials involved in corruption to escape the Iraqi justice system.
Salim Shawqi, a member of the parliamentary Legal Committee, told Al-Monitor, “This law represents a judicial need rather than an administrative or organizational need, because any official can renounce their Iraqi citizenship if they are suspected of a crime, but keep and take protection from their foreign citizenship.”
A law on “acquired citizenship” was last proposed in the Iraqi parliament in October 2016. There is no indication it will pass anytime soon, Ibtisam al-Hilali, another member of the Legal Committee, told Al-Monitor.
“The current session of parliament will not pass a law on dual citizenship due to the lack of genuine will to see it passed, as is the case with the law on the federal parliament,” she said. “The heads of the blocs in parliament do not want to see the law on acquired citizenship pass because most of them would be harmed by it. There is a desire to pass the law on to the next parliament.”
She added, “Talk of the possibility of passing it and putting a time limit for its implementation after the current term in order to soften resistance to it is also not realistic. The parliament’s internal system stipulates that any law that passes comes into effect as soon as it is published on the statute books.”
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