Hungarian Simp Nat, when you have been rejected. What's next?

Not clear the reasons for the rejection. Was it because they lost your birth certificate? And they asked for clarification from the wrong embassy and not getting a reply within some months then sent a rejection? Is that the scenario or was there another reason? That is, what was the official reason for rejection?

Two things to consider:

1) Paperwork pushers the world over make mistakes.
2) Paperwork pushers the world over often refuse to admit they make mistakes and want to blame you.

You have three immediate options as I see it:

1) Contact the embassy and ask in writing why you were rejected if you have not already been provided this information and request a re-application or if they refuse request a statement in writing why they are refusing. Under Hungarian law they must reply to you with details and quotes to the law sections for justifying their refusal.
2) Contact the Hungarian Ombudsman office and file a complaint (your local Hungarian Embassy should provide contact information to the Ombudsman office). This office is there for this reason and it can be a very effective way to resolve issues.
3) If the above fail, and you feel you are in the right and the paperwork pushers are wrong, contact a good Budapest lawyer and sue the government for failure to process their own law correctly.

Good luck.

I agree with your points.  I think the one staff and only staff I ever spoke to during my 12 month wait wasn't quite sure what was going on.
All my grandparent's Hungarian papers were in order.
Had all my papers translated by Embassy and all verified.
Showed my receipt from the school I started studying Hungarian in as my Hungarian was very very basic when I applied but was encourage by the Embassy knowing I started language classes.

Financially strong, well written CV and why I wanted Hungarian citz from my grandparents (born in early 1900s in the Kingdom of Hungary = present day Slovakia)

Apparently the staff didn't see a reply in December.  February my "rejection and you can not appeal letter arrived" but at a wrong Embassy somewhere in the world and they never notified the Embassy where I applied.
I kept on this issue monthly and received a copy of the letter by email June 20.  Letter dated January 27 2014.

Looking for my longform birth certificate now and all my verified papers.
The Embassy worker said "maybe you must speak better Hungarian"... I told her that she is the only person I met, twice and that was 1 year ago.

She said I could apply again but I don't see the point as my papers were all perfect and never questioned during all these months.

Could I try for citizenship by descent and not simp naturalization IF both grandparents were born and baptized in the Kingdom of Hungary (1889 Grandpa and 1905 Grandma) and my mother being born in 1937 in Canada, is a Canadian citizen.  Is it worth a try?  With only a 1.5% rejection rate, I am beyond shocked that it took this long for a reply and a negative at that.  Try another country and Embassy or it all ends up in the same place and will probably be rejected again?

I was told no reason would be given and not allowed to appeal.  This does sound like one staff at the Embassy messed up and trying to make this work in my favor without pi$$ing them off.  I read on this forum of one guy who had a grandfather born in Budapest and mother in the USA and he did "through descent" and not simp nat.  Give that a try?

klsallee wrote:

Not clear the reasons for the rejection. Was it because they lost your birth certificate? And they asked for clarification from the wrong embassy and not getting a reply within some months then sent a rejection? Is that the scenario or was there another reason? That is, what was the official reason for rejection?

Two things to consider:

1) Paperwork pushers the world over make mistakes.
2) Paperwork pushers the world over often refuse to admit they make mistakes and want to blame you.

You have three immediate options as I see it:

1) Contact the embassy and ask in writing why you were rejected if you have not already been provided this information and request a re-application or if they refuse request a statement in writing why they are refusing. Under Hungarian law they must reply to you with details and quotes to the law sections for justifying their refusal.
2) Contact the Hungarian Ombudsman office and file a complaint (your local Hungarian Embassy should provide contact information to the Ombudsman office). This office is there for this reason and it can be a very effective way to resolve issues.
3) If the above fail, and you feel you are in the right and the paperwork pushers are wrong, contact a good Budapest lawyer and sue the government for failure to process their own law correctly.

Good luck.

blonder wrote:

I was told no reason would be given and not allowed to appeal.

I may be wrong, but that sounds suspicious. I have heard that sort of comment before from paper pushers in offices in Hungary and it was not true. But to be sure, I would contact the Ombudsman.

In fact, I know someone in Hungary when told they could not get some paperwork in an office, the person asking for the paperwork called the Ombudsman right there in the office and put the Ombudsman's office on speaker phone and got the Ombudsman to tell the paper pusher office worker to give the paperwork over as there was no legal right to block giving it out. As you can guess that was one very unhappy paper pusher after that conversation, but they begrudgingly gave out the paperwork being requested. Happy ending for freedom of information there, but that was a few years ago, laws may have changed since and your current millage may vary. But can't hurt much to give it a try.

Email:
I am afraid I have bad news. After you asked me reportedly how your application procedure was going, and I also found it a little bit strange that I got a decision made, notification required notice in our electronic system at the end of last year (without further details), I called the Immigration Office. After I managed to find there someone who actually dealt with answering such requests, I was told that we were sent an official letter about your request for naturalisation being rejected, back in February. However, that letter (please see attached) never arrived to us, as it was apparently sent by mistake to another Hungarian embassy, who never notified the Ministry about this mistake.

Since I assume that you would mostly be interested in the reason of the rejection, and as this is not detailed in the official notification, I asked the Immigration Office, who informed me that they can only give informal information about this. In your case the problem has apparently been the lack of sufficient Hungarian knowledge, while a that would be required by law. I am truly sorry to have to give you these bad news  and on top of it all by e-mail  and a little bit surprised by this decision. However, what I was told in the Immigration Office is that while you cannot appeal against this decision, you have the right to submit your application again once you fulfil the criteria of speaking Hungarian. We will be happy to handle your case again, also based on the documents you have already submitted, once this criteria is met.

As for your birth certificate which has been submitted in an original copy at the time of your application, once the official letter lost somewhere in the system finds its way to us, I will dully forward it to you.

I ask for your kind understanding regarding the above, and hope you will find the time to learn Hungarian and resubmit your application.

Blonder, just for some clarification: no reason was given for why your application was rejected? You said above that they lost your birth certificate, but do you just mean that they didn't return your supporting documents? Or do you mean that your application was rejected *because* they had lost your birth certificate?

Thanks for the info.
I did send an email to both the consulate and to Budapest immigration (gentleman who signed my brief letter of rejection).
Something just does not add up.  Meeting only one staff, twice during the whole 12 months and never any issue brought up at that time of language makes me suspect something went wrong and they had to give some excuse.

I will not apply again to the same consulate as what good would it do?  They have record of you being rejected and I highly doubt that they would reconsider.  I will stay on it and see where it goes and update the forum.

NEVER would have expected this response after 12 months especially when I am told that all is well and when no further paperwork is asked for that its a great sign that there is no issue with my application.

OK, for the moment let's take the consular official's explanation at face value. When you submitted your application, she would have had to check a box at the end of the form, certifying either that you did or did not understand and speak Hungarian ("a magyar nyelvet érti és beszéli / a magyar nyelvet nem érti és nem beszéli"). Presumably, had she checked the latter box that would have been the end of your application, right there. I can't imagine why she would have forwarded the application to Hungary if the answer had been "no." Still you might ask, just to confirm.

That's all that the local accepting official should have to say on the matter. There's no further qualitative assessment, just a yes or no.

So assuming that the answer was "yes", for someone in Hungary to have made the determination that your Hungarian was insufficient, it would have to have been purely on the basis of your written application. And here, the most obvious place I can see where suspicion could have fallen was on your handwritten CV. Was your CV written "correctly", i.e. did it provide a brief chronological narrative of your personal and professional life? Was it written in proper Hungarian, and perhaps checked by a native reader to make sure it made sense?

I remember a year ago when i applied she did check "a magyar nyelvet érti és beszéli" as I was starting a school and showed her my school receipt etc. 
My CV was very descriptive, informative from personal details to the descriptive terms used in my grandparents' hometown from "old Hungarian" to present day Slovakian names.
My CV was checked by a native and some of the place names that no longer exist, I was given help and guidance in being shown where these places existed (I have visited there 15x in the past 5 years).

Mentioned my future plans of business in Hungary and it was all in order.
This is the part I don't understand.  The CV and forms were all perfectly done and even all the land I inherited was shown.  So no financial issues, no health issues, just a grandson that wanted to take citizenship.

Received this today:

I totally understand your disappointment, and agree that the testing of language skills is not a resolved issue. There have been some problems with people misleading the authorities in various ways, so I understand that the Immigration Office is trying to be stricter. However, I am sure that our Immigration Office had nothing against a === citizen applying from ===



With regard to your documents, we will find them, and send it back to you as soon as possible. However, as far as I understand, it is only your original birth certificate that is being returned. The rest will be kept by the Immigration Office. I will confirm this though, as due to the very small number of applications here in =====, I have no experience with rejected applications .

I ask for your kind understanding for this unfortunate outcome, and hope you will manage to submit your application again.

Thank you Spooty and Ksallee

As for your questions.

1)      The letter I sent you attached earlier, and which I am now sending again, which is the official document that has been by mistake sent to the wrong place, only refers to 4 § of Governmental Decree Nr 125/1993 (IX.22.) regulating the implementation of the Law on Hungarian Nationality (law Nr LV. from 1993) which states that the applicant has to be notified. I have consulted with the Immigration Office and our Ministry was told that based on Hungarian law, the decision maker has the discretional right not to specify the reason for the refusal. However, the last sentence of the document, stating that after fulfilling the legal requirements for the application, does give a hint about the reason of the rejection  i.e. the lack of sufficient Hungarian knowledge.

2)      You can certainly contact the Hungarian Ombudsman office and file a complaint, here however the embassy will not be able to play a role. I therefore send you a link to the English version of the ombudsmans homepage: http://www.ajbh.hu/en/web/ajbh-en/

3)      Just as with the ombudsman, you can most certainly also contact a lawyer in Hungary to ask for further possibilities.

What I can tell you know is that you can file a complaint against us (the embassy or the Ministry) here at the embassy, in a written for not delivering the notification about the refusal of your application. This will be then investigated and you will get an official answer. However, as the incorrect posting happened after the decision was taken, this will not affect the decision itself.

Also, I would above all recommend you to apply again in say one year when you speak better Hungarian.

As for the documents you have sent in, all original birth and/or marriage certificates will be returned, not the copies though, even if the translation of these was original and certified.

I hope this is of  some help.

blonder wrote:

Received this today:

I totally understand your disappointment, and agree that the testing of language skills is not a resolved issue. There have been some problems with people misleading the authorities in various ways, so I understand that the Immigration Office is trying to be stricter. However, I am sure that our Immigration Office had nothing against a === citizen applying from ===



With regard to your documents, we will find them, and send it back to you as soon as possible. However, as far as I understand, it is only your original birth certificate that is being returned. The rest will be kept by the Immigration Office. I will confirm this though, as due to the very small number of applications here in =====, I have no experience with rejected applications .

I ask for your kind understanding for this unfortunate outcome, and hope you will manage to submit your application again.

Thank you Spooty and Ksallee

Seems to me, from the above response, that the local Hungarian embassy/consulate is being quite helpful and it was the office that sent the rejection letter to the wrong embassy/consulate and the embassy/consulate that received it and did not forward it that messed up. I, myself, probably would not file a complaint against your local consulate (yet), but sure would file a complaint against the others that messed up. And probably contact the Ombudsman for advise and if you have any options under Hungarian law to get this issue reconsidered or not (despite being told so far you can not, one thing about Hungary, even the paper pushers, they do often try to "find a way" to solve problems as I do think they know the system is imperfect).

For what it is worth, it took four years (4, as in the number after three and before five, and that is years not months) to process some paperwork here on one topic we were dealing with. Just got everything signed off, stamped, and okay-ed by a cavalcade of governments offices three months ago. We are golden now on that issue. Things may take a while, but they still can work out, so don't give up quite yet. 

Thanks for the solid advice.  I think the consulate girl had no idea what she was doing and perhaps things got sloppy a long the way. 
I will message the Ombudsman and see what options I have.
I was thinking once rejected, second chances are not usually positive.
It was a flawless application and all was in order.  Maybe since Orban was re-elected they don't need any more "supporters" or new voters?  I can't see trying again as my experience tells me I would be hitting my head against a wall.

klsallee wrote:

Seems to me, from the above response, that the local Hungarian embassy/consulate is being quite helpful and it was the office that sent the rejection letter to the wrong embassy/consulate and the embassy/consulate that received it and did not forward it that messed up. I, myself, probably would not file a complaint against your local consulate (yet), but sure would file a complaint against the others that messed up. And probably contact the Ombudsman for advise and if you have any options under Hungarian law to get this issue reconsidered or not (despite being told so far you can not, one thing about Hungary, even the paper pushers, they do often try to "find a way" to solve problems as I do think they know the system is imperfect).

For what it is worth, it took four years (4, as in the number after three and before five, and that is years not months) to process some paperwork here on one topic we were dealing with. Just got everything signed off, stamped, and okay-ed by a cavalcade of governments offices three months ago. We are golden now on that issue. Things may take a while, but they still can work out, so don't give up quite yet. 

Latest update and papers still lost...

I am afraid your original birth certificate and the letter from the Office of Immigration and Nationality regarding the rejection of your naturalisation request have still not been found, but this may be due to the summer and the changes both in my Ministry and in the Immigration Office. As I may have told you, the documents were unfortunately sent to the wrong embassy, from where they were sent back in February/March. As all diplomatic courier is handled with a great deal of administration, I am sure I will soon be able to tell you more. Until then, I am afraid I have to ask for your patience again.

The summer has been good here in X, though busy. I hope you had a nice time as well, and have not given up studying Hungarian and the plans of reapplying for the Hungarian citizenship.

best regards,

kIsalle,

Depending on what happens those are good options to consider!

Kati

Hello.
Received all my papers back after 16 months since application.
Here are some interesting links members on how "harsh" they are becoming regarding knowledge of language.

One question - if you grandparents were born in the early 1900s in the Kingdom of Hungary (present day Slovakia) can't one just apply via naturalization and NOT simplified naturalization?

http://www.mfa.gov.hu/kulkepviselet/SK/ … yszhon.htmhttp://hungarianspectrum.wordpress.com/ … krainians/

I hope someone else can confirm this, but I understand that under the regular naturalization approach you must be able to show that there was no break in the transmission of Hungarian citizenship to you. Unfortunately, there are many ways the citizenship chain can be broken. The Trianon Treaty -- which took Hungarian citizenship away from those living in neighboring countries like Slovakia -- is a major problem, but there are other causes as well. And because the citizenship rules kept changing over time, it can be very difficult to determine whether any break occurred. Thus the Simplified Naturalization procedure, apart from the language requirement, is far easier, since you only need to demonstrate descent from a Hungarian citizen.

And yes, that announcement this summer about the language requirement certainly suggests there's been a crackdown, which may explain the harsh rejection you received. But at least the standard now is clearer: "understand and communicate in Hungarian language on a sufficient level, to be able to present the application for naturalization independently, without external assistance, and to answer the questions asked by the officer independently, in short sentences." In any event, I would not take the initial rejection personally; I suspect they reached your application just as the policy was changing. I would certainly apply again, but I would respect the consul's advice about spending a year or so on language study first.

I'm not really sure on the break in citizenship, but there was/is a requirement of having lived in Hungary for a certain amount of years. It's been awhile since I looked at the "requirements".  I know my father was born in modern day Hungary but his side of the family comes from Erdely, outside of Nagyvarad (now Romania). I do remember when I applied for mine, I asked the consulate if "1956" would be a problem and she said no. People did loose their citizenship at that time and later re-instated.

Some of those issues are more with duel citizenship with neighboring countries with Hungarian citizens that remained in their current borders; Hungary recognizes it and the other country doesn't.

As for the language requirements, in all honesty, I hope they do keep that in place. I speak, and understand Hungarian, a little rusty on the reading and writing but nevertheless; if you are going to apply for naturalization/passport for a county, at the very least you should be able to speak/understand the language.

I'm still waiting for my reply after a year and I have more then satisfied the language and paperwork requirements, so I don't know what is going on with the policy now, and it only needs to be one parent, and both mine were born there. They have until December to give me a answer. They say these things are a matter of politics?

Great advice, I hope this works out for our ex pat friend.