ATTENTION – THIS IS AN AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION from Polish
On July 1, 1937, the Convention on Certain Questions Relating to Conflict of Nationality Laws and the Protocol on Statelessness, signed in The Hague on April 12, 1930, entered into force with respect to Poland (ratified pursuant to the Act of March 5, 1934 – Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland No. 27, item specified).
According to Article 9 of the Convention, “if, under the law of a given State, a woman who is a citizen of that State loses her nationality due to a change in her husband’s nationality during the marriage, such loss shall be conditional upon her acquiring her husband’s new nationality.” This means that if a Polish citizen lost his Polish citizenship due to naturalization (e.g., because he was no longer subject to military service due to exceeding the age limit set by military regulations), his wife no longer automatically lost her Polish citizenship, as had been the case previously (i.e., since January 31, 1920). The loss of Polish citizenship extended to the wife only if she herself had already acquired foreign citizenship, such as that of her husband. However, if she held only Polish citizenship, she did not lose it.
This principle did not apply to legitimate children – the loss of Polish citizenship by their father still resulted in the loss of Polish citizenship for the children.
In practice, therefore, if under Article 9 of the Convention the wife retained Polish citizenship despite her husband’s loss of it, she could later “pass on” her citizenship – for example, by giving birth to a child after January 19, 1951, when the 1920 Act ceased to be in force.
