Luxembourg - Administrative Court, judgment no. 26395C

The applicant is a stateless Palestinian from Lebanon, who was denied statelessness status recognition as he was found to fall under the exclusion grounds of the 1954 Convention, even after leaving the territory under UNRWA mandate. 

Case name (in original language)
26395C
Case status
Decided
Case number
26395C
Citation
https://ja.public.lu/25001-30000/26395C.pdf
Date of decision
State
Court / UN Treaty Body
Administrative Court of Luxembourg
Language(s) the decision is available in
French
Applicant's country of birth
Lebanon
Applicant's country of residence
Luxembourg
Facts

Applicant is a Palestinian born in Lebanon in 1963. He applied for asylum in Luxembourg in 2004, a request that was definitively rejected in 2006. He later received a toleration status. In 2009 he applied to be recognised as a stateless person, but this was also denied by the authorities. He challenged this decision in court, with the first instance court ruling against him prior to the present judgment.   

Decision & Reasoning

The Court found that having previously applied for a refugee status does not preclude the applicant from applying for a statelessness status.

Regarding the issue of whether the applicant falls under the exclusion grounds of the 1954 Convention, the Court reasoned as follows:

“Considering that it appears from the documents that [the applicant] was born on 15 April 1963 in the camp of …, located on the territory of the Lebanese Republic, and having thus found himself under the protection of [UNRWA], which is to be considered as a UN agency other that the UNHCR within the meaning of point 2 of Article 1 of the aforementioned New York Convention, as rightly found by the [first instance] judges;”

“Considering that from then on the applicant, considering the situation, continued to fall under the protection of UNRWA, even after his departure from the camp …, as he was born there to people originating from the old Palestine, thus qualifying him for such protection also on the date that the contested administrative decision was taken, which found him not eligible for a statelessness status on the basis of Article 1(2) of the aforementioned New York Convention;”

Outcome

The Court declared the appeal unfounded and confirmed the lower instance court’s ruling which denied the applicant access to the statelessness status on the basis of exclusion grounds.