360H.117 Belan, John/9
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Yugoslavia (Prince)
Sir: The Department has received your despatch No. 1184 of November 4, 1931,7 concerning the case of John Belan, a naturalized American citizen of Hungarian origin, on whose account taxes in lieu of military service are being levied against his father, Ivan Beljan, by the Yugoslav Government.
It is observed that the Yugoslav foreign office takes the position that Mr. Belan did not lose Hungarian nationality upon his naturalization as an American citizen since he had not resided abroad for a period of ten years as required by the Hungarian law and that he relinquished Hungarian nationality and became a subject of the Kingdom [Page 618] of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by virtue of Article 61 of the Treaty of Trianon8 and under Yugoslav law still is a subject of Yugoslavia.
In refutation of the above contention it might be pointed out that while Article 36 of the Hungarian Nationality Law, promulgated December 20, 1879, declares that a Hungarian citizen, who is at the same time a citizen of another country, shall be considered as a Hungarian citizen until such time as he loses Hungarian nationality under the law, Article 47 of the same law in translation provides that: “Any contrary regulations contained in treaties concluded with other States shall constitute exceptions to this law”. The purpose of the latter provision obviously was to save from abrogation by that law provisions of treaties dealing with nationality which had already been entered into by the Austro-Hungarian Empire such as the naturalization treaty between the United States and the Austro-Hungarian Government proclaimed August 1, 1871.9
At the time of the negotiation of the treaty with the Austro-Hungarian Government this Government was earnestly seeking to gain recognition, by European Governments in particular, of the principle enunciated in the Act of Congress of July 27, 1868, (U.S.C. Title 8, Section 15) that “the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people”. This principle was accepted by the Austro-Hungarian Government in Article 1 of the Treaty mentioned in the following terms:
“Citizens of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy who have resided in the United States of America uninterruptedly at least five years and during such residence have become naturalized citizens of the United States, shall be held by the Government of Austria and Hungary to be American citizens, and shall be treated as such.”
Having accepted by treaty the principle of the right of individuals voluntarily to expatriate themselves the Austro-Hungarian Government did not thereafter, to the Department’s knowledge, decline to recognize the naturalization of any of its nationals as citizens of the United States after five years continuous residence in this country as resulting in the loss of Austro-Hungarian nationality. Moreover, the Government of Austria in Article 230 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye10 and the Government of Hungary in Article 213 of the Treaty of Trianon11 again affirmed their acceptance of that principle by undertaking to recognize any new nationality which had been or which might be acquired by their nationals under the laws of [Page 619] the allied and associated powers, and in accordance with the decisions of the competent authorities of those powers pursuant to the naturalization laws or under treaty stipulations and to regard such persons as having, in consequence of the acquisition of such new nationality, in all respects severed their allegiance to their country of origin. The rights and advantages of the Articles cited above were formally accorded to the United States by the treaties establishing friendly relations with Austria and Hungary concluded August 24, 1921, and August 29, 1921, respectively.12
It is desired that you again take up the case of Mr. Belan with the Yugoslav Foreign Office setting forth the view of this Government that for the reasons stated above he ceased to be a Hungarian national upon his naturalization as an American citizen; that he did not, therefore, become a Yugoslav subject; and that military taxes which have been levied against his father on his account should be remitted.
Very truly yours,
- Not printed.↩
- Treaties, Conventions, etc., 1910–1923, vol. iii, pp. 3539, 3565.↩
- Malloy, Treaties, 1776–1909, vol. i, p. 45.↩
- Treaties, Conventions, etc., 1910–1923, vol. iii, pp. 3149, 3232.↩
- Ibid., pp. 3539, 3624.↩
- For the treaty with Austria, see Treaties, Conventions, etc., 1910–1923, vol, iii, p. 2493; for the treaty with Hungary, see ibid., p. 2693.↩