Court name: Gent Court of Appeal
State: Belgium
Date of decision:

The applicant was born in China and is of Tibetan origin. He fled China to Nepal, and then made his way to Belgium through India on a fake passport. His asylum applications failed, he has been detained with a view to deportation to China, but had been released due to the Chinese authorities not issuing the necessary documents. The applicant also unsuccessfully attempted to organise voluntary return through IOM, contacting authorities of China, India, and Nepal. These facts convinced the Court to recognise the applicant as stateless. 

Court name: Federal Administrative Court
State: Germany
Date of decision:

The case had been brought before the ECJ for a preliminary ruling, leading to its famous Rottman judgment (CJEU, C-135/08 Rottmann, judgment of 2 March 2010). The Federal Administrative Court rules on the case after the ECJ's judgment. The applicant lost his Austrian nationality when he naturalised in Germany, but his German naturalisation was later revoked as he committed fraud in the naturalisation procedure, rendering him stateless. The Federal Administrative Court upheld the administrative decision to withdraw the German nationality despite the uncertainty about the restoration of the Austrian nationality of the applicant. 

Court name: District Court Zwolle (Rechtbank Zwolle)
Date of decision:

Confirmation of acquisition of Dutch nationality was wrongly refused. The court is of the opinion that the provisions from the Statelessness Convention must be regarded as provisions of international law binding on everyone, as referred to in Article 94 of the Constitution. This means that the admission requirement (of 3 years) set by the defendant is contrary to article 1 of the Convention.