- 295 results found
A child (MK) was born in the UK in 2010 and her parents were both nationals of India. MK had made an application for registration as a British citizen. Paragraph 3 of Schedule 2 of the British Nationality Act 1981 requires that the child 'is and always has been stateless'. The key issue was whether, in order to be considered stateless, the child was required to have sought (and failed) to acquire the nationality of her parents. The Court determined that there was no requirement to have sought the nationality of the parents, and MK was, if she met the other relevant requirements, entitled to register as a British citizen, as she was and always had been stateless at the date of the relevant Home Office decision. Further, the Secretary of State could require an applicant to prove the relevant facts, but could not lawfully 'impose requirements that cannot, or practically cannot, be met'.
The case concerns the appeal by the stateless person from Kuwait, Mr. Sager Al-Anezi, against the decision of the asylum authorities in Bulgaria to reject his application for international protection as manifestly unfounded under a fast-track procedure carried out while Mr.Al-Anezi was placed in detention for removal. By a final judgment, the Sofia City Administrative Court allowed the appeal of Mr. Al-Anezi. The court judgment contains inter alia detailed analysis on the significance of the right to nationality as a fundamental human right; the application of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees to stateless persons and the situation of Bidoon in Kuwait.
The case originated in an application against Bulgaria lodged by a stateless person of Palestinian origin. He had obtained subsidiary protection in Bulgaria, but was later served an expulsion order on national security grounds, detained for removal for 18 months and then released due to the impossibility of implementing the expulsion order. The Court reiterates that States have an obligation to identify a destination country in removal orders, stating that “In cases of aliens detained with a view to deportation, lack of clarity as to the destination country could hamper effective control of the authorities’ diligence in handling the deportation”. The Court held that detention with an uncertain destination is violates Articles 3, 5, and 13 ECHR.
A stateless person of Chechen origin, whose real identity could not be determined with certainty, was detained in Bulgaria for several years. His application for asylum was rejected, but he stayed in detention as several countries denied him the right to enter. By the time the case reached the CJEU, the applicant had been in detention for 37 months. The court ruled that where there is no reasonable prospect of successful expulsion, individuals cannot be detained. The Court ruled on several points regarding the interpretation of Article 15(4) to (6) of Directive 2008/115/EC (EU Returns Directive), including on the calculation of the maximum period of detention. The Court also interpreted the concept of a (lack of) reasonable prospect of removal within the meaning of Article 15(4) of the Returns Directive, according to which detention ceases to be justified and the person concerned must be released immediately when it appears that, for legal or other considerations, a reasonable prospect of removal no longer exists.
Communicated case to the Human Rights Committee concerning 'immediate birth registration' by Albanian authorities who refuse on the basis of lack of a birth certificate in the form required by law.
An appeal as to whether the Secretary of State was precluded under the British Nationality Act 1981 from making an order depriving the appellant of British citizenship because to do so would render him stateless.
This case concerns a person born in 1962 in Uzbekistan, who has been residing in Russia since 1990. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the applicant did not acquire a new citizenship, and was therefore stateless. He was arrested and detained until expulsion because of his undocumented status, and released after two years based on the expiry of the time-limit for enforcement of the expulsion order. The applicant brought the case to the ECtHR on the grounds that appeal procedures and the conditions of his detention had been inadequate. The Court ruled that there had been a violation of Articles 3 and 5 ECHR.
The plaintiff lost the passport of citizen of Ukraine, which was issued in the currently uncontrolled territory of Ukraine. The court ordered the State Migration Service to issue a passport to the plaintiff, since the SMS did not prove the reasonableness and lawfulness of the decision to refuse to issue a passport as a citizen of Ukraine.
The applicant was born in Georgia and moved to Leningrad before the breakup of the Soviet Union, where he was educated and got married. He was never able to exchange his Soviet passport for a Russian passport, was ordered to be expelled while the expulsion was not possible due to his statelessness. His attorney has repeatedly appealed the deportation ruling but in vain.
The decision changed judicial practice and provided a legal ground for the release of stateless persons from detention, even though the amendments to the legislation ordered by the Constitutional Court are still pending (as of May 2021).
An initiative was submitted to the Constitutional Court of Serbia to assess the provisions of two by-laws that prevent registration of children in the birth registry immediately after birth, in cases when the children’s parents do not possess personal documents, on the grounds that the by-laws are not in accordance with the provisions of the Serbian Constitution, the Family Law and ratified international conventions which guarantee the right to birth registration and personal name to every child, immediately after birth. The Constitutional Court rejected the initiative, on the grounds that possession of an ID card is legally binding on all citizens of the Republic of Serbia who are over 16 years of age and have permanent residence on the territory of the Republic of Serbia.
The City Administration for General Affairs of the City of Novi Sad dismissed the requests for subsequent birth registration of three legally invisible Roma persons referring to the “current situation in Novi Sad, with ever greater influx of persons of Roma nationality claiming that they and their children were born in Novi Sad” and expressing a fear that “hasty, irresponsible and reckless” acting upon their requests “would cause numberless requests of a similar kind by persons of Roma nationality”.
The applicant is a Saharawi man who was born in the former Spanish Sahara and who, in 1979, fled to the Saharawi refugee camps in Tindouf (Algeria), where he lived until 2005, when he arrived in Spain after being issued a passport by the Algerian authorities. In Spain, he applied for statelessness status. The Ministry of Interior rejected his application based on his Algerian passport, but this decision was overturned, on appeal, by the High Court, which found that Algerian passports are just travel documents.
The case concerns a Saharawi woman who was not recognised as a stateless person by the Ministry of Interior, in a decision which was later upheld by the High Court. The Supreme Court overturned both the lower decisions.
The case concerns the refusal to grant legal recognition in France to parent-child relationships that had been legally established in the United States between children born as a result of surrogacy treatment and the couples who had had the treatment. The Court found that totally prohibiting the establishment of a relationship between a father and his biological children born following surrogacy arrangements abroad was a violation of Article 8 concerning the children’s right to respect for their private life, under Article 8.
The applicant was born in 1984 in the Republic of Croatia and her birth was registered, but she never acquired citizenship. The case concerns her subsequent acquisition of citizenship as a stateless person with permanent residence.
The author of the communication fled with her family from Uzbekistan to the Netherlands. After their asylum application got denied by the Dutch authorities, she was told that she had lost her Uzbek citizenship because she had not registered with the Uzbek Embassy within five years of leaving the country. Various application for social and child benefits got rejected by various national courts. The author maintains that she has exhausted domestic remedies with regard to her claims of violations of her right to family life and non-discrimination and of the rights of her child. The author submits that,by denying her application for a child budget, the State party violated her and Y’s rights under articles 23(1), 24(3) and 26, read in conjunction with articles 23(1) and 24(1), of the Covenant, as well as Y’s rights under article 24(1) including minors. In light of the level of vulnerability of the child and the inability of the mother to provide for the child, the Committee concluded that the State party has the obligation to ensure the child's physical and psychological well-being are protected. By not doing so, the State violated the child's rights under article 24(1).
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.
An Egyptian national, who resided in Malta and acquired Maltese nationality, was granted authorisation to renounce his Egyptian nationality as he could not hold dual nationality while in Malta. He was deprived of his Maltese nationality years later, following a decision that found that he had obtained his Maltese nationality from his first marriage through fraud. The Court found that there was no violation of Article 8 and held that the decision to deprive the applicant of his Maltese nationality did not adversely affect him.
The family applied for statelessness determination, claiming to be stateless since they were not able to receive identity documents from any state, despite trying for years, and were not recognised by any state. The authorities rejected the application for statelessness determination with the argument that they did not fulfil their duty to cooperate. The lack of any form of documentation is interpreted as a sign for the lack of credibility and willingness to cooperate rather than a possible indication of statelessness. The Federal Administrative Court upheld the decision arguing that the applicants had not demonstrated that they had undertaken the necessary steps to receive identity documents. The situation of the children is not examined separately. Arguments relating to the best interests of the child are not discussed.
A stateless person of Albanian origin, whose parents had been granted refugee status in the former SFRY, had lived in Croatia for nearly forty years, but his repeated attempts to regularise his residence were largely unsuccessful, apart from short term permits that were granted and withdrawn sporadically. The Court found that Croatia’s failure to comply with its positive obligation to provide an effective and accessible procedure or a combination of procedures enabling the applicant to have the issues of his further stay and status in Croatia determined amounted to a violation of the right to private and family life under Article 8 ECHR. The Court determined that the applicant was stateless and emphasised that statelessness was a relevant factor towards establishing Croatia’s violation of the ECHR.