Getting the decision
You'll usually get two letters from the Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) about your decision, sent on consecutive days, which are sent as a physical letter to the address where you are registered as living in Sweden.
One will contain the full details of the decision, and the other is a confirmation (kontrollmeddelande) that they've sent you the decision. If you receive both, there's no need to reply directly, but if you get the second letter without having received the actual decision, contact the Migration Agency immediately.
The first page of the decision letter simply states the decision, the second and sometimes also parts of the third page will state the reasons for the rejection and then the final page will give instructions on how to appeal if you wish to.
If you are awarded citizenship, you will also receive a certificate of citizenship (medborgarskapsbevis).
First appeal
The first step of challenging the decision is to appeal to the Migration Agency. You have three weeks to appeal from when you receive the first decision, and information on exactly how to do this can be found in the letter. The decision is considered to have been served on the recipient after two weeks, so in reality you have four to five weeks – but it's probably better not to risk it.
The Migration Agency has two citizenship units, one in Norrköping and one in Gothenburg, and you will be asked to send your appeal to whichever of these handled your case.
This is not included in the letter but you can also appeal digitally, using this email if your case is handled in Norrköping and this email if your case is handled in Gothenburg.
If you are appealing because you believe you meet the requirements under the new rules which came into force on June 6th and have been wrongly rejected under these rules, state the reasons why you believe you meet the new rules as clearly as possible and provide supporting documentation if you have it.
If you are appealing because you met the requirements for citizenship under the old rules in force before June 6th and applied when those rules were in force, the Fair Transition campaign has prepared a template to help, which includes the main legal argument, although it stresses that the appeal should be adapted to your case.
READ ALSO: Legal fight begins for Fair Transition rules
Is it worth getting a lawyer to help with your appeal?
The appeals system is designed to make it easy to appeal without a lawyer, so it is not necessary to have one. It is in practice difficult to find a lawyer who specialises in citizenship cases and if you are appealing against the new rules applying retroactively, it is probably not worth the expense anyway.
If, however, you are appealing because you believe you were wrongly rejected despite qualifying for citizenship under the new rules, it might be worth getting a lawyer to state your case as clearly as possible.
What happens once your appeal has been submitted?
Once it's been sent, the Migration Agency will review your appeal, and may stick with its original decision or alter it. If the agency does not see a reason to change the decision, your appeal will be forwarded to one of two Migration Courts (Migrationsdomstolen).
If your case was handled in Norrköping, it goes to the Administrative Court in Malmö (Förvaltningsrätten i Malmö). If it was handled in Gothenburg, it goes to the Administrative Court in Gothenburg (Förvaltningsrätten i Göteborg).
According to the Fair Transition campaign, the Administrative Court in Gothenburg is handing out judgments within one to three months of an appeal being lodged, while the processing time at the Administrative Court in Malmö is closer to nine months.
Second appeal
If the Administrative Court rejects your appeal, the next stage is to have it referred to the Migration Court of Appeal (Migrationsöverdomstolen), which is based at the Administrative Court of Appeal in Stockholm. However, to appeal to this higher level, you first need to get "permission to appeal", or prövningstillstånd.
The Migration Court of Appeal takes up cases where the lower courts' decision is clearly wrong, where there is no guidance in the existing law or earlier rulings, or where the case has the possibility of setting a precedent.
What is the Fair Transition campaign doing?
The Fair Transition campaign took on about 65 cases of people who were rejected in the first few weeks after the new law came into force who they have helped appeal in the hope of getting a case moved up to the Administrative Court of Appeal.
They are testing three arguments.
The first is based on past rulings where Sweden's Supreme Court and Supreme Administrative Court have found that the government cannot apply new laws to pending circumstances: that people have a legitimate expectation that the law that was in place when they made an application will be used to make a decision.
The second is based on recent rulings from the EU court where the court found that decisions on the acquisition of nationality of an EU member state fall within the scope of EU law. This argument then goes on to argue that EU law does not allow new laws to apply to old circumstances.
The third argument acknowledges that special circumstances could possibly exist that allow Sweden's authorities to apply a new law to pending circumstances, but says that if this is the case it is the Migration Agency's duty to do a full assessment as to whether those special circumstances exist or not, which it has not done. As a result, this argument continues, the agency has made an incomplete assessment of the person's case and there is as a result a procedural flaw in the judgement.
As there are several judges in Malmö and Gothenburg making rulings, the hope is to find one who accepts one of these arguments and overturns a decision.
"The minute we have one judgment saying "yes" and one judgment saying "no", even one on the other side, then we will absolutely get a case at the Migration Court of Appeal," Graham Butler of the Fair Transition campaign told The Local.
What has the result been so far?
So far, none of the appeals decisions from the Administrative Court in Gothenburg that the Fair Transition Campaign is aware of have engaged with any of these three arguments. They have simply stated that the person appealing did not meet one or more of the new requirements for citizenship that came into force on June 6th and that the Migration Agency was, as a result, right to reject them.
As far as the Fair Transition campaign is aware, the Malmö court has yet to decide on an appeal against the new citizenship law.