Bulgaria - Sofia City Administrative Court, Sager Al-Anezi v. State Agency for Refugees

"According to Art. 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to a nationality. According to Art. 5 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in accordance with the Essential Obligations referred to in Art. 2 of this Convention, States Parties undertake to prohibit and eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone to equality before the law, especially in the enjoyment of the following rights - the right under para. d, iii, is the right to citizenship. According to Art. 24, para. 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, every child has the right to acquire citizenship. According to Art. 9 of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, Contracting States may not deprive a person or group of persons of their nationality on racial, ethnic, religious or political grounds. The importance of citizenship as a fundamental human right is particularly clear in the words of E. Warren (more than half a century ago), a judge of the US Supreme Court, who stated that "citizenship is a fundamental human right because without citizenship, people lose the ability to access their rights. " The center of refugee law is that those who have a legitimate fear of persecution in their country of origin and cannot rely on their own government to protect their fundamental rights may seek international protection. Refugees may have passports, but this circumstance does not protect them either, because they are de facto stateless persons as long as there is a risk of persecution and therefore they need the surrogate protection given to them by the Refugee Convention and international refugee law (Goodwin-Gill, 2007). In fact, stateless persons are deprived of their rights and owing to the fact that no government recognizes them as nationals of the country concerned, they should be identified as vulnerable persons."

"In fact, refusals of entry back to the country of birth, refusals to issue birth certificates, inability to obtain travel documents are just examples of the protection that stateless persons need. In this regard, and in many cases, stateless persons have a legitimate fear of persecution, which fear provided that it is for any of the reasons set out in the first paragraph of Article 1 (A) of the Geneva Convention, according to which the term "refugee" applies to any person who, "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it", justifies the application of the rules of refugee law. That provision undoubtedly presupposes that it applies to a person who is outside the country of which he is a national and cannot benefit from the protection of that country or does not wish to enjoy such protection because of these concerns, or, being stateless and out of the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, he cannot return or, for such fears, does not wish to return to it. In this way, the Refugee Convention undoubtedly includes stateless persons."

"The mere fact that a person is stateless does not, of course, mean that he or she shall be considered a refugee (in this sense Revenko v Secretary of the State for the Home Department, Court of Appeal, Civil Division, England and Wales)"

"Consequently, the interviewing authority should consider the importance of citizenship as a fundamental human right when deciding, given the fact that the mere fact that a stateless person cannot attribute his or her status to a refugee, provided that no legitimate fear is demonstrated of persecution for one of the reasons set out in the Refugee Convention. Following this, as stated above in the reasoning of this judgment, the interviewer should, in a subsequent decision, answer the following questions: 1) whether the applicant can be identified as stateless, 2) whether could be accepted by the authorities in the emirate of Kuwait, 3) whether stateless or so-called Bidoon are at risk of persecution, 4) whether the particular circumstances surrounding the applicant's refugee history could put him or her at risk of persecution, 5) whether in principle the Bidoon in Kuwait base their fear of persecution on any of the causes specified in the Refugee Convention (race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group)."

"In view of the possible applicability of the exclusion clauses of the Convention and the fact that the applicant had a passport of a citizen of the Republic of Ghana in those proceedings, it does not in any way justify a conclusion for commiting a crime of obtaining or using a false passport."

"Although, during the interview, the foreigner stated that his problems stemmed from the fact that he was a stateless person and from the situation of stateless persons in Kuwait, this fact was not investigated by the interviewing authority."

(Unofficial translation from Bulgarian)