Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Croatia
Date of decision:

The applicant had renounced his Bosnian-Herzegovinian citizenship after having received an assurance that he would obtain Croatian citizenship, and became stateless. However, Croatia subsequently refused his citizenship application on national security grounds, without providing the reasons for this decision. He was issued an expulsion order and his permanent residence was terminated. While the applicant was in immigration detention, his Bosnian-Herzegovinian citizenship was restored and he left Croatia voluntarily. The Court found that the limitation in the applicant’s procedural rights in his expulsion proceedings had not protected him against arbitrariness, and found a violation of Article 1 of Protocol n. 7. The remaining complaints were either found inadmissible or were not examined by the Court.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
Date of decision:

The applicant is a stateless person of Palestinian origin who was born in a refugee camp in Lebanon. He applied for protection in the UK on several grounds, including that he was at risk of harm in breach of Article 3 ECHR because of attempts to recruit him to extremist armed factions in the camp, but his application was rejected. The ECtHR accepted that there was no risk in case of return to Lebanon, and found no information supporting the applicant’s argument in a EUAA (former EASO) report regarding the recruitment of young Palestinians in refugee camps in Lebanon. The Court found no violation of Article 3 ECHR.

Court name: Council of the State
State: Greece
Date of decision:

The Council of State approved the application for interim measures and suspended the deportation order against the applicant, who was born in Palestine and was stateless, according to certain documents on the public record (or a Libyan national based on others). The deportation order (issued due to suspicions that the applicant was a member of Hamas) was found to cause hardly repairable damage to the applicant, while the Hellenic Police had failed to concretely demonstrate why delaying the deportation would harm national security and the public order.  

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
Date of decision:

Switzerland refused to issue a residence permit to an elderly foreign national from Iran, who had been living in the country for over 50 years and cited strong family and social ties in Switzerland. The applicant was residing unlawfully because a deportation decision issued against him had not been enforced due to the lack of an Iranian passport. The Court found that Switzerland breached its positive obligation under Article 8 ECHR to regularise a foreigner who was unlawfully present, and found that a fair balance had not been struck between the public interest and his right to respect for private life.

Court name: Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
Date of decision:

The Appellant’s appeal to prevent his deportation to Algeria was brought on Articles 3 and 8 ECHR grounds. The Appellant submitted that he was at real risk of destitution (Article 3) and / or would face very serious obstacles to his integration into Algeria on account of his mental health (Article 8). The Upper Tribunal refused the Article 3 ECHR part of the appeal but granted the appeal on Article 8 ECHR grounds. 

Court name: Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
Date of decision:

The Appellants were appealing the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (the “FtT”). The Appellants brought their appeal on two grounds: i) the FtT had failed to provide a properly reasoned finding regarding the nationality of the Appellants; and ii) the FtT had failed to properly consider the risk of returning the Appellants to Iran on account of their being ethnically Kurdish. The Upper Tribunal dismissed the Appellants’ appeal. 

Court name: Austrian Supreme Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgerichtshof, VwGH)
State: Austria
Date of decision:

The case concerns the unlawfulness of the deportation of a mother and her two daughters from Austria to Georgia. A reassessment from the court (at the time of the execution of the deportation) leads to the result that the circumstances in favour of the applicants have changed to such an extent that the deportation must be considered disproportionate.

Court name: Conseil d'État
State: France
Date of decision:

The removal of the parent of a stateless child who is not entitled to a residence permit can only be ordered for reasons of national security or public order. Otherwise, the removal of the parent would deprive the child of the rights and guarantees attached to the status of stateless person if the child accompanies his or her parents outside French territory in application of the removal order issued against the parents, or would disproportionately infringe on the right to family life of the parents, in breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, if the child remains in France separated from his or her parents.

Court name: Supreme Court (Areios Pagos)
State: Greece
Date of decision:

This case concerns an extradition request from Germany to Greece regarding a stateless person accused of several crimes in Germany. The Greek Supreme Court found that the extradition of a stateless person is not prohibited under the European Convention on Extradition and the national legislation.

Court name: Fourth Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction of the Russian Federation (Четвертый Кассационный суд общей юрисдикции Российской Федерации)
Date of decision:

The applicant was born in an undisclosed Soviet Union Republic and moved to Russia in 1993. He held a temporary resident permit. He was convicted of a drug-related crime and sentenced to eight years in prison. The Ministry of Justice issued a decision on the "undesirability of his stay" in Russia. The Ministry of Internal Affairs followed up with a decision ordering his deportation as the applicant failed to leave Russia within the prescribed deadline. After being released from prison, the applicant was placed in a migration detention centre for 48 hours; this term was repeatedly extended by the court (prior to his eventual release). Russian authorities contacted Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities, both of which refused to grant the applicant entry as he was not a citizen of their respective countries. The applicant challenged both decision of the Ministry of Justice on the undesirability of his stay in Russia and the decision of Ministry of Internal Affairs ordering his deportation. The challenge was dismissed due to lack of legal grounds to declare the disputed decisions illegal.

Court name: Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation (Конституционный суд Российской Федерации)
Date of decision:

The Applicant was born in Uzbekistan in 1974 and obtained Russian citizenship in 2005. In 2017, he was convicted of an extremist crime for organisation of an extremist religious community (Nur movement) branch in the city of Blagoveshchensk and sentenced to imprisonment. In January 2019, his Russian citizenship was removed because of the conviction. After being released from prison in April 2019, the Applicant did not have any identification documents except for certificate of release, as his Russian passport was withheld. He did not have a chance to acquire any other documents to legalise his stay in Russia or leave the country, since he was arrested and placed in the migration detention centre five minutes after his release from the prison. As a result, Russian state court of civil jurisdiction declared the Applicant guilty of an administrative offence for violation of rules of stay in the Russian Federation under Article 18.8 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation ("CAO") and prescribed a punishment in the form of penalty and administrative expulsion from the Russian territory.

Russian authorities contacted Uzbekistan to expel him there, however Uzbekistan did not agree to accept the Applicant. As a result, the Applicant remained in custody for about two years, since Russian law does not have provisions granting stateless individuals the right to challenge their detention nor requiring the courts to determine its duration when ordering the detention. Following unsuccessful challenges of his detention in the Russian state courts of civil jurisdiction, the Applicant filed a complaint with the Russian Constitutional Court challenging the constitutionality of the relevant legal provisions. The Constitutional Court dismissed the appeal finding all the challenged provisions were constitutional because its earlier judgment No. 14-P/2017 of 25 May 2017 already provided stateless individuals a right to challenge their further detention three months after the date of the decision to detain and expel them. The Constitutional Court also contacted Uzbekistan authorities again and they finally agreed to receive the Applicant in Uzbekistan.

Court name: Court of Session (Scotland)
Date of decision:

The case concerns an application for asylum by a Cameroonian national, a single mother with a child born in the UK. The applicant claimed that the child’s father was a German national exercising his EEA treaty rights in the UK, and that the child may accordingly be a British citizen. The Court of Session held that the Upper Tribunal erred in not adjudicating an application for directions filed by the applicant to obtain documents to ascertain the father’s nationality. In respect of the documents required, the court held that there was no duty to enquire on the part of the Secretary of State, to identify and produce appropriate documents. The court also noted that the applicant’s situation as a single mother with a child who would be without family support was a material consideration in assessing her claim for asylum.

Court name: Council of the State
State: Greece
Date of decision:

The case concerns the rejection of the application for international protection from an applicant who is from Bangladesh and claims to be stateless. The Council of the State held that, given that the applicant had initially been registered as a national of Bangladesh and only mentioned that he was stateless for the first time before the court, the decision to reject his asylum application was sufficiently reasoned in that part. However, the part of the decision ordering the applicant to depart Greece voluntarily within three months had not taken into consideration the fact that he suffered from serious health issues, and thus could be considered eligible for the issuance of a residence permit for humanitarian reasons.

Court name: UK Supreme Court
Date of decision:

The appellant, a Rwandan national, was granted refugee status in the UK but was subsequently convicted of a number of offences. The Secretary of State for the Home Department has powers, under the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 to order the deportation of persons convicted of serious offences, which included an offence committed by the appellant. The Secretary of State ordered the appellant’s detention pending deportation and the appellant initially sought judicial review of the deportation order, only to then focus on the lawfulness of the detention. Following the decision in R (Draga) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 842, where the Court of Appeal ruled detention lawful even where based on an unlawful deportation order, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appellant’s substantive appeal. The Supreme Court overturned the decision.

Court name: High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division (Administrative Court)
Date of decision:

The claimant, born in a refugee camp in Western Sahara, asserted he is a stateless person within the meaning of article 1(a) of the 1954 UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (although he never made a formal statelessness application) and alleged that he was unlawfully detained under immigration powers, pending deportation. The Secretary of State attempted to obtain an emergency travel document for the claimant from various foreign authorities, yet delays were encountered. The claimant was detained throughout but it was held that the Secretary of State was acting with reasonable diligence, the decision to detain the claimant was not unlawful considering the circumstances and there was a reasonable prospect of removal during the period of detention. The claimant was a persistent absconder with multiple convictions, had been assessed as posing a high risk of harm to the public, and these factors weighed against him when assessing what was a reasonable period of detention.

Court name: Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
Date of decision:

This appeal to the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber concerns the Secretary of State for the Home Department’s (hereinafter SSHD) decision to deprive the appellant of his British citizenship. The Upper Tribunal addressed the issue of whether Article 8(1) of the ECHR was engaged and whether the SSDH discretionary decision under section 40(2) or (3) to deprive the individual of his or her British citizenship was exercised correctly. The grounds for judicial review is that the delay in acting on the appellant’s fraud reduces the public interest in deprivation and is a disproportionate interference with Article 8 ECHR.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Denmark
Date of decision:

The case concerns Danish authorities’ decisions to deprive a dual national of his Danish citizenship and to deport him, following conviction for receiving training with ISIS. This was found to be compliant with Article 8 ECHR. The Court reasoned that deprivation of nationality was not arbitrary, that there had been sufficient opportunities to appeal, and that the crime in question, terrorism, was a serious one that endangered human rights. The punishment of deprivation of nationality was found to be proportionate. The Court also found that deprivation of nationality in this instance did not result in impermissible consequences as it did not render the applicant stateless.

Court name: Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
Date of decision:

The appellant, a child born to a Zimbabwean mother and Portuguese father, was not a recognised national of any country and consequently applied for limited leave to remain in the United Kingdom through paragraph 405 of the Immigration Rules. However, for paragraph 405 of the Immigration Rules to apply, individuals must also satisfy the conditions of paragraph 403, which include a requirement that individuals be inadmissible to any country other than the UK. The Court of Appeal affirmed the Upper Tribunal’s decision that JM was admissible to Zimbabwe and therefore did not qualify for limited leave to remain in the country under paragraph 405.

Court name: England and Wales High Court (Queen's Bench Division)
Date of decision:

The Home Office was not authorised to detain an individual subject to a deportation order for longer than the period reasonably required to “enable the machinery of deportation to be carried out”, nor for any other purpose.

The applicant, M.  Singh, applied for release from detention on the basis that he was being held unlawfully whilst his deportation was delayed. The judge found that the powers within the Immigration Act 1971 (the “1971 Act”) contained implied limitations, such that unless the Home Office could prove to the court, within three days following the hearing, that Mr Singh’s deportation was imminent, he should be released on the basis that the implied limitations on the exercise of the power to detain had not been complied with.

Court name: Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo)
State: Spain
Date of decision:

The applicant, who described himself as being Saharawi, claimed that he should not be granted statelessness status because he was entitled to Spanish nationality. Alternatively, he argued that he should be recognised as being stateless. The Supreme Court found that his entitlement to Spanish nationality could not be considered, given that it has never been requested before by the applicant. However, the court found that given that he could not be considered as Moroccan or Algerian under the law of these two countries, nor as covered by the exception foreseen in Article 1(2)(i) of the 1954 Convention, his statelessness status should be recognised.

Court name: Penza Regional Court
Date of decision:

In July 2017, the applicant was punished with deportation from Russia for violating the rules of stay of foreign nationals and was placed in a detention centre for foreign nationals until execution of the deportation order. It was later found that the applicant had lost his Tajik citizenship and deportation to Tajikistan therefore became impossible. The applicant successfully challenged the decision on his deportation due to the impossibility of executing the deportation order, and was released from the detention centre.

Court name: Austrian Constitutional Court (Verfassungsgerichtshof, VfGH)
State: Austria
Date of decision:

The case concerned the rejection of the asylum applications submitted by a single mother and her five minor children, who are stateless Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and were registered with UNRWA. The Constitutional Court found a violation of equal treatment among foreigners and held that the Federal Administrative Court had failed to recognise the applicants’ right to ipso facto protection as refugees, disregarded UNHRC’s assessment criteria for the Gaza Strip, and did not give sufficient consideration of the vulnerability of a mother mother and her five minor children.

Court name: Court of Justice of the European Union
State:
Date of decision:

The case concerned the interpretation of Article 19 of the Directive (2011/95/EU, Qualification Directive). Specifically, the applicant had been granted subsidiary protection by the Austrian authorities on the mistaken basis that he was an Algerian national. The applicant was not responsible for the mistake, having rather declared throughout the proceedings that he was stateless. The CJEU held that under the Qualification Directive a State is under the obligation to revoke subsidiary protection if information emerges to prove that an individual never satisfied the requirements under the Directive.

Court name: UK Court of Session (Inner House, Extra Division)
State:
Date of decision:

The case concerned the removal of the applicant, a stateless Palestinian individual who had been habitually resident in Syria and present in the United Kingdom since 2007, to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). It was held by the – that the PNA could be considered as a safe third country despite it not being formally recognised as a state. It was also held that the  Directive 2011/95/EU on standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection (the Qualification Directive), and for the content of the protection granted could not be interpreted as guaranteeing a resident permit to all those in receipt of subsidiary protection.

Court name: Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
Date of decision:

The appellant’s nationality, or lack thereof, was the central issue of the remaking decision of this appeal. The appellant alleged that he was stateless and that this constituted “very compelling circumstances” outweighing the public interest requiring his deportation; he could not therefore be deported from the UK. The respondent alleged that the appellant was a de jure Guinean national and that the barriers to removal in his case were purely administrative in nature and did not therefore permit the appellant to succeed in his appeal. The Court found that the appellant failed to show, on the balance of probabilities, that he was stateless within the meaning of the 1954 Convention; rather, the appellant was found to be in “actual limbo”. The Court also held that it could not be said that the very strong public interest was outweighed by any factors supporting the appellant’s position, whether viewed in isolation or cumulatively. The Court further found that there may come a stage when all possible avenues to establish the appellant’s Guinean nationality and/or other means of facilitating a removal have been exhausted and that the prospect of deporting him from the UK could be considered so remote that Article 8 ECHR might provide a route for success; but, in the Court's judgment, that stage had not been reached by some distance.