Rinkēvičs Urges Saeima to Review Law Granting Citizenship to Divya Kannan Vishwanath

Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs sent a letter on 21 October to Saeima Speaker Daiga Mieriņa about the law “On the Recognition of Divya Kannan Vishwanath as a Citizen of Latvia”, which parliament adopted on 15 October. The president expresses doubts about how the law was passed and calls on lawmakers to review it if necessary. The presidential chancellery confirmed the letter to the news portal nra.lv.

Urgency and an individual law

The Saeima declared the law urgent and handled it in two readings. Urgency was backed by more than two thirds of deputies. Rinkēvičs notes that recognising a person as a citizen through a separate law is fundamentally different from naturalisation for exceptional services to Latvia, provided for in Article 13 of the Citizenship Law.

The president does not dispute the Saeima's right to decide by an individual law to recognise a foreigner or stateless person as a citizen. Even so, such a law must be adopted through good legislative practice, in line with the principle of a democratic state governed by the rule of law set out in Article 1 of the Constitution (Satversme). Legislators must assess a law's impact on society and its public benefit, and must be sure they hold verified facts about the person concerned.

Missing information

In the president's view, publicly available drafting materials give only a partial picture of the circumstances, the adoption procedure, the facts checked by the responsible committee and the expected benefit to society. The published information also shows no significant or urgent circumstances that would justify declaring the law urgent.

Article 75 of the Constitution does not allow the president to demand that parliament reconsider a law. Rinkēvičs therefore asks the current, 14th Saeima to dispel any doubts during its term, reviewing the law if needed. He also urges careful consideration of the procedure for adopting individual citizenship laws, and of whether they should be handled urgently without a compelling reason.

The law will be published in the official gazette Latvijas Vēstnesis on 22 October 2026, as the Constitution requires.