Commonwealth citizen

A Commonwealth citizen is a citizen or qualified national of a Commonwealth of Nations member state. Most member countries do not treat citizens of other Commonwealth states any differently from foreign nationals, but some grant limited citizenship rights to resident Commonwealth citizens. In 16 member states, resident non-local Commonwealth citizens are eligible to vote in elections. The status is most significant in the United Kingdom, and carries few or no privileges in many other Commonwealth countries. British Nationality Act 1948 and British subject Commonwealth citizenship was created out of a gradual transition from an earlier form of British nationality. Before 1949, all citizens of the British Empire were British subjects and owed allegiance to the Crown. Although the Dominions (Australia, Canada, Ireland, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South Africa) created their own nationality laws following the First World War, they mutually maintained British subjecthood as a common nationality with the United Kingdom and its colonies. However, divergence in Dominion legislation and growing assertions of independence from London culminated in the creation of Canadian citizenship in 1946 and its separation from British subject status. Combined with the impending independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, nationality law reform became necessary. The British Nationality Act 1948 redefined British subject as any citizen of the United Kingdom, its colonies, or other Commonwealth countries. Commonwealth citizen was also defined in this Act as having the same meaning. This change in naming indicated a shift in the base theory of British nationality, that allegiance to the Crown was no longer a requirement to hold British subject status. The change was also necessary to retain a number of newly independent countries that wished to become republics rather than retain the monarch as head of state. The common status of Commonwealth citizenship would instead be maintained voluntarily by the various members of the Commonwealth.