Court name: Supreme Court of Cyprus
State: Cyprus
Date of decision:

The case was brought to the Supreme Court by 16 individuals who are descendants of a Cypriot citizen and a Turkish citizen, claiming that they applied to register as citizens of Cyprus but never received a response from the authorities. They argued that they are stateless and that Cyprus failed to grant them Cypriot citizenship. The Supreme Court noted the adverse consequences of statelessness, referring to jurisprudence of the ECtHR, but found that all but one applicant are Turkish citizens. For all applicants, the Court concluded that the authorities’ failure to respond to the citizenship applications fell under the jurisdiction of the Administrative Court, and thus rejected the applications.

Court name: Cour de cassation
State: France
Date of decision:

The case concerns the challenge before the French Court of Cassation (Cour de Cassation) of a refusal by the Court of Appeal of Rennes to register on the French civil registries the birth certificate of a child who was born in Canada as a result of a surrogacy procedure, and the recognition of parental relationship between that child and one of the applicants. In this case, both parents were a couple of men. The Cour de Cassation ruled in favour of the applicants and ordered the registration of the child's birth certificate on the French registries, designating both parents as fathers of the child.

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: Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht)
Date of decision:

Applicants requested to be recognised as stateless in addition to having already been recognised as refugees. The judgments deals with the question of whether refugee status is comparable in rights to the status of nationals within the meaning of the exclusion clause in Article 1(2) of the 1954 Convention. The Court sides with the applicants confirming their right to be recognised as stateless persons in addition to having been granted asylum-based residence status. 

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

Germany’s highest administrative court decides on a case in which stateless minors (the applicants) were granted German nationality. The applicants’ parents applied for their nationality using false information, namely that the family would originate from Lebanon instead of Turkey. The Court held that the withdrawal of nationality is only valid if done promptly, i.e. within a maximum of five years after the nationality has been granted.