Although the article might want to talk about MI, the law itself does not say anything about a specific type of residency. Hence all residencies are captured by the new law.
Although only time can tell, my belief is that the Govt will not publish a regulation for a new law. They keep it like this for 3 years, then they will change it. It is how portuguese mentality is. When they do not want it, they will not say it but let it be rotten in waiting times. 3 years is OK to have an updated citizenshipâs law. For now, it is to early to have a new law, thatâs why they just ignore it.
FWIW - I had a call recently with one of the senior attorneys at my law firm (VCA) about initiating a lawsuit and she indicated that all of her colleagues fully believe that the clock starts ticking from online application. She acknowledged that the regulations still need to be published, but isnât concerned. We will seeâŠ
I am afraid your logic of â10 blank pagesâ a bit flawed, as the law specifically states that the application must have been subsequently approved. So no, it is impossible for you to have submitted 10 blank pages and then become a citizen.
The Regulations are a piece of subordinate legislation. If they circumvent the parent legislation they will be deemed to be invalid. So if it is manifestly clear that the intention of the law was to treat the initial application as the time from which the clock will start ticking, then the regulations cannot determine the date to be something else.
My point was that for GVs, at the time of your application nothing is checked/accepted other than âdid you pay us the fee?â
Whereas for Manifestação de Interesse - which is all this legislation seems to have considered - there are very clear notions of âacceptance of the expression of interestâ and âremainingâ
âthe legislatorâs intention was to count the time from the date of acceptance of the expression of interest in remaining in Portugalâ
Yes, I understood your point, and I have explained why it is not relevant whether the application was checked or not at the time of application, because anyway it will have been checked and approved later, and thatâs the logic of this law.
It is also very clear that the status of your GV application changes from Awaiting Submission to Under Analysis upon payment of the initial fee.
To me GV âUnder Analysisâ does not mean âAcceptedâ in the same way that MIs are accepted if they pass review.
When a car mechanic presents me with a bill Iâve never seen before, itâs âunder analysisâ but I certainly havenât âacceptedâ it until I study every line item and agree itâs legit
The law does not say âacceptedâ, it says ârequestedâ to start the timer.
In regards to âacceptedâ, the law says that you are eligible to apply for citizenship in case you were eventually approved.
Well, one part of the law says âreside in the countryâ, another says that day count starts from application. In case of GV I easily see other date not application and it will not be circumventing of the law, especially taking into account, that the requirement of residence is the main one, while norm how to calculate it is the detalization. Another way could be that you will need to prove that you have spent at least 7 days while waiting for GV approval, which will be equivalent of âresidence on GVâ.
However, my base case scenario is that they just would not care about GV and would equalize them with others giving them time count from the application date.
But if I treated the law meticulously and altogether, I would say that this waiting period abroad until GV approval could not be considered as residing.
Correct! Citizenship law still required 5 years of residency. After submitting citizenshipâs application, IRN will send request to AIMA to check the validity of 5 years residency.
Also correct! After receiving the request for checking 5 years of residency from IRN, AIMA will use to new law about âhow to count 5 years of residencyâ and give a response to IRN.
Nothing is conflicting here. Basically IRN only cares about the response from AIMA - Yes/No answer. For ones who already obtained the âcontagem do tempoâ from AIMA, the response from AIMA might come out quicker because certainly AIMA has stated clearly in the âcontagem do tempoâ that the person has completed 5 years of residency and now they are just repeating themselves for the same matter.
Itâs is up to AIMA to decide. Anyone who submitted the residency 5 years ago and now having a valid resident card in hand can go request AIMA a âcontagem do tempâ. If âthe contagem do tempoâ does show a conclusion of AIMA indicating that 5 years of residency has been met, then it is 100% good to go for citizenshipâs application. No other proof can stand above the contagem do tempo issued by AIMA. At the moment, there is no regulation for new law, but some people already obtained successfully the contagem do tempo from AIMA based on the online application. At least, IAS published that they got it for one of their GV customer. Surely there is no harm to request this document from AIMA.
For ones who have several physical resident cards with total times adding up more than 5 years, nothing can stop them from apply citizenship. No need for contagem do tempo as long as you have all cards in hand.
Although per @seagu77 's comments elsewhere I believe there is some stage during naturalization where IRN checks that you are still legally resident so while 5 years of cards is sufficient to start the application, to complete it you must also ensure you renew and maintain your status until the citizenship is granted.
For most of us, one of the benefits of Portuguese visa is not have to maintain residence to gain citizenship. Iâm sure many people got residency that way. Or am i mistaken?
Of course, one needs to maintain card (physically) valid at all times until naturalisation process is done. Keep renewing the cards during the process is a different task. The key I want to say in the thread here is one can request a contagem do tempo from AIMA if his online application was done 5 years ago. Once he gets the contagem do tempo in hand, it is obvious to know that he is able to apply the citizenship or he has to wait for some more times.
I think that because there are so many people here from so many different parts of the world, there is a bit of a language barrier even though weâre all mostly writing in English. The purpose of the ARI program is that people who make a significant contribution to the national economy are given more favorable naturalization terms than those who donât. For legal purposes, a resident is someone who has permission to reside in the country. For tax purposes, a resident is someone who spends most or all of the time in the country. For the purposes of naturalization, current AIMA practice, following the new law, seems to be to start the clock on the permission to reside at the date of application. All of the attempts to parse the meaning of the new law that doesnât include information from someone within the Portuguese legal community just seems to be confusing everyone.
Yep. It is fully correct. Get contagem de tempo before applying for citizenship, if you want to use this new law.
The problem is that without regulation, different AIMAs may give different time count.
I know the person with GV who recently received contagem de tempo from AIMA. The starting residence date in his document is the date of the first DUC. It is just 10 days earlier than date on the first residence card, while date of application was 1.5 years earlier. So he has to wait and plans to ask new contagem de tempo in 6 month hoping that the answer would be different.
Thatâs bizarre - doesnât match any of the interpretations lawyers gave. No way for him to appeal with a lawyer? Has AIMA just lost all record of biometrics etc?
I bless the rains down in Alfama