Fishery Restrictions Case

• Jurisdiction: Cuba
• Docket Number: Case No. 111
• Date: 26 February 1938
• Court: Supreme Court (Cuba)

Cuba, Supreme Court.

Case No. 111

Fishery Restrictions Case.

Naturalization — Naturalized Citizens — Status of — Discrimination Against.

The Facts.—In this action Article 11 of the Decree Law 704 of 1936,1 which provided that masters of fishing vessels must be Cuban-born citizens, was attacked as unconstitutional.

Held: that Article 11 was unconstitutional. “As this Court has declared in its Decisions Nos. 32 and 943 of 1936, the rule that it is legally impossible for naturalized Cubans to engage in certain categories of employment or to devote themselves to a specific type of lawful activity—even though they meet the requirements and conditions under which these are permitted to natives—for reason only of the origin of their citizenship, violates the essential principle, protected by Article 12 of the Constitution,4 of equality of Cubans before the law.

¹ Law of Fisheries, March 28, 1936, Article 11.

²In re Peynó, March 6, 1936.

³In re Peynó, November 17, 1936.

⁴ Article 12 of the Cuban Constitutional Law of June 11, 1935, provides: “All Cubans are equal before the law. The Republic recognizes no personal exemptions or privileges of class or sex.”