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The competent authority argued that an applicant born in the former Soviet Union who was recognised as stateless might still be an Uzbek national, relying on the assumption that they could theoretically still claim this nationality. However, under Uzbek law, a person who lives abroad for over five years without consular registration loses their nationality, which was the case of the applicant. The court therefore ruled that there was no evidence that they were considered as such or as a national of any other country.

The decision concerns the interpretation of Article 12(1)(a) of the EU Qualification Directive. Under this provision, individuals who are registered with UNRWA are generally excluded from refugee status in the EU. However, if UNRWA protection or assistance has ceased for reasons beyond the individual’s control, these persons must ipso facto be granted refugee status.

In its decision concerning a stateless Palestinian, the German Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) referred a preliminary question to the Court of Justice of the European Union (the CJEU) requesting clarification on the circumstances under which UNRWA’s assistance or protection is to be regarded as being ceased.

The applicant was convicted of two counts of grand theft and sentenced to imprisonment and subsequent expulsion from Slovenia for a period of five years. The applicant claimed that he should not have been sentenced to expulsion due to his statelessness. The Supreme Court held that his statelessness was not a determinative factor for the purposes of the sanction of expulsion of foreigners, since the term “foreigner” includes both nationals of other States and stateless persons. The court added that, in any event, (i) the applicant was not in fact stateless but a national of the Republic of Croatia; and (ii) even if he were stateless, he could not benefit from the additional protection against expulsion afforded by the 1954 Statelessness Convention because he had entered and resided in Slovenia unlawfully. Consequently, the Supreme Court upheld the accessory sentence of the applicant’s expulsion from Slovenia for a period of five years.

The applicant applied for but was denied recognition as a stateless person. In deciding the case, the Judicial Chamber of the Spanish Supreme Court declared that to be “stateless”, a person must not be considered a national by any State under the relevant legislation. While the applicant provided contradictory information as to her place of birth, the Court found that she appeared to have been born in Belarus and, as such, was entitled to Belarusian nationality and therefore not stateless.

The Appellant, a Kuwaiti woman claiming to be a stateless Bidun, entered the UK using false documents and applied for asylum. The Home Office refused her claim, arguing she was not credible and had not proved the authenticity of her birth certificate and registration card. The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal upheld this decision, citing inconsistencies in her testimony and giving limited weight to her documents despite accepting they showed no signs of fabrication.

On appeal, a Special Immigration Judge (“SIJ”) found it inconsistent for the initial judge to accept the documents’ authenticity yet decline to give them weight. However, rather than allow the appeal, the SIJ ordered a full rehearing. At the de novo hearing, her appeal was again dismissed. The Appellant then appealed to the Court of Appeal, which found that the SIJ had erred in its decision. The Court held that in cases where status is the sole issue, credible documents - if not undermined by specific evidence - should be decisive. It ruled that unrelated credibility concerns were irrelevant. The Court concluded that the initial tribunal’s reasoning was flawed and should have resulted in the appeal being allowed. The Appellant’s appeal was therefore granted.

The applicant, a stateless person who had been residing in Russia after arriving there from Georgia, was subject to exclusion and deportation orders in 2014 and 2015, despite Georgian authorities confirming he was not a Georgian national and refusing to assist in his return. In December 2015, he was convicted of an administrative offence for remaining in Russia without valid documents and was ordered to be removed and subsequently detained. After multiple appeals, he was released in June 2017. The applicant then applied to the ECtHR, which found violations of Article 5 due to the unlawful nature of his detention and the absence of timely and effective judicial review.

The appellant (Mr. Hashi) was born in Somalia, arrived in the UK in 1995 as a child, and was granted UK citizenship in April 2004 at age 14. On 18 June 2012, the Secretary of State issued a deprivation order under section 40(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981, stating it was conducive to the public good to remove Mr. Hashi’s citizenship on account of national-security concerns related to alleged involvement in Islamist extremism. By then, Mr. Hashi had left the UK, was detained in Djibouti, and ultimately transferred to the United States where he was prosecuted for terrorism-related offenses. Although he tried to appeal Special Immigration Appeals Commission’s (“SIAC”) decision, because his primary statelessness claim failed, SIAC refused to extend the 28-day limit for his late appeal. He argued that deprivation rendered him stateless, since Somalia’s 1962 citizenship law revoked Somali nationality when a Somali acquired foreign citizenship.  SIAC, however, found that this 1962 law had been superseded by a Transitional Federal Charter (TFC) that came into force in February 2004, explicitly allowing dual citizenship. SIAC preferred evidence from the Secretary of State’s expert (and noted inconsistencies in the defense expert’s prior testimony in a different case), concluding that Mr. Hashi remained a Somali national and thus would not be rendered stateless. The Court of Appeal upheld SIAC’s decision in all respects, confirming that the TFC had legal force from early 2004, that Mr. Hashi retained Somali nationality, and that his deprivation of British citizenship did not contravene the statutory prohibition against making a person stateless.

Recognition of the inaction of the Government of Ukraine in not bringing the subordinate regulatory legal act into compliance with the Law in connection with the introduction of the statelessness determination procedure. The Court held that the Government is obliged to bring the procedure for issuing a temporary residence permit into compliance with the law regulating the statelessness determination procedure.

The applicant sought the annulment of an Order mandating his forcible deportation from the Republic of Bulgaria to a third country given the applicant’s lack of Bulgarian nationality (he was stateless) and lack of a valid residence permit. The court annulled the Order on several grounds: Firstly, the issuing authority failed to consider factors in the applicant’s favour regarding his ties to Bulgaria that need to be taken into account under Bulgarian law. In this regard, the court listed, among other factors, that the applicant has established his life in Bulgaria and had broken all ties to his country of birth, is married to a Bulgarian and has a minor Bulgarian child. The court stressed that for these reasons, the Order also failed to properly consider the rights of the applicant’s wife and minor child as required under Art. 8 ECHR. Secondly, the Order did not specify a deadline for voluntary compliance with the obligation to leave the country as required by law. Thirdly, the issuing authority failed to specify the country to which the applicant should be deported.

The case involves the revocation of refugee status of a Rwandan national who had been recognised as a refugee and granted asylum in Germany due to political persecution in Rwanda. The German authorities later revoked his refugee status due to the applicant’s engagement in activities which were deemed to be serious non-political crimes or acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations (such as participation in armed conflicts and involvement in human rights violations on the territory of Congo). The German Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) upheld the decision to revoke the applicant’s refugee status on the basis of his actions which fell under the exclusion grounds set out in the Asylum Procedure Act and other relevant laws, while also highlighting the importance of procedural safeguards and the need to ensure that the revocation process was conducted fairly and in accordance with the law.

The Head of the Registry Office in Krakow denied transcription of the foreign birth certificate listing two women as mothers on the basis that transcription of such birth certificate would be contrary to the fundamental principles of the legal order of the Republic of Poland. The applicant (one of the mothers) appealed against such decision to the Małopolski Voivode, but the Maopolski Voivide upheld the decision of the Head of the Registry Office in Krakow. Subsequently, the applicant appealed against the Małopolski Voivode`s decision to the Provincial Administrative Court in Kraków. The Provincial Administrative Court in Kraków agreed with the argumentation presented by the lower-instance authorities and dismissed the applicant`s appeal.

The complainant was born in Nigeria and naturalised in Germany in February 2002. The competent authorities rescinded the complainant's naturalisation after it was discovered that the naturalisation had been unlawful because the complainant had fraudulently deceived the State authorities. After the administrative courts upheld the authorities’ decision, the complainant asserted a violation of his rights under Article 16 paragraph 1 sentence 2 of the Constitution by means of a constitutional complaint to the Federal Constitutional Court. The Federal Constitutional Court held that the constitutional complaint was unsuccessful because, amongst others, Article 16 paragraph 1 sentence 1 and sentence 2 of the German Constitution does not per se prohibit the loss of nationality if the person concerned becomes stateless as a result.

The applicants are stateless Palestinians who seek to be recognised as refugees in Germany. Ultimately, the Higher Administrative Court of Saarland confirmed the decision to grant them refugee status on the basis of their registration as Palestinian refugees and the involuntary cessation of UNRWA protection.

The Administrative Court of Freiburg issued a decision in the case of a stateless Bedoon from Kuwait who filed an application for international protection in Germany in 2018. The German authorities rejected her application as inadmissible in 2019 as they found the application to be a “secondary application” as the applicant had previously been through an unsuccessful asylum procedure in Denmark. In 2019, the applicant brought an action against this decision, claiming that the Danish authorities had not examined her personal circumstances and wrongly assumed that she was not a Bedoon from Kuwait. The Administrative Court found that the German authorities were wrong in rejecting the applicant’s asylum application as inadmissible.

The case concerned the determination of a Palestinian applicant’s statelessness, focusing on whether Palestine can be considered a State in this context and whether a travel document issued by the Palestinian National Authority represents proof of Palestinian nationality. The Hungarian Supreme Court (Kúria) ruled in 2019 that neither the administrative authority in charge of statelessness determination nor the courts involved in the appeal procedure are entitled to assess the statehood of an entity; this task corresponds uniquely to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It also confirmed that holding a travel document does not always prove nationality.

The case concerns a Sierra Leonese man, whose claim for statelessness status was rejected due to credibility concerns related to his various previous asylum and alien policing procedures. The Budapest Administrative and Labour Court (Fővárosi Közigazgatási és Munkaügyi Bíróság) – whose judgment was later confirmed by the second-instance Budapest Regional Court (Fővárosi Törvényszék) – emphasised the importance of considering and contrasting with each other all pieces of available evidence, some of which the defendant unlawfully excluded from its assessment. It also pointed out that credibility concerns related to the applicant’s previous asylum claims are not necessarily relevant for statelessness determination. In the subsequent procedure, following another rejection by the administrative authority, this time based on unspecified and incorrectly referenced national security concerns, the Budapest Administrative and Labour Court repeatedly quashed the decision and granted the applicant statelessness status, based mainly on his unquestioned Sierra Leonese origin (about which he has been consistent through all his asylum and alien policing procedures and which an anthropologist expert witness statement also corroborated) and several official confirmations by Sierra Leonese consular authorities that the applicant was not that country’s national. 

This summary concerns the cases of the Budapest Administrative and Labour Court (Fővárosi Közigazgatási és Munkaügyi Bíróság), Judgment no. 26.K.31.000/2016/16. of 6 June 2016, entirely confirmed on appeal by the Budapest Regional Court (Fővárosi Törvényszék), Judgment no. 1.Kf.650.107/2016/5. of 19 April 2017; in the subsequent procedure: Hungary – Budapest Administrative and Labour Court (Fővárosi Közigazgatási és Munkaügyi Bíróság) Judgment no. 18.K.31.696/2018/23. of 18 October 2018.

The case concerns the statelessness determination of a woman from Nigeria who arrived in Hungary in 2003. The Budapest Administrative and Labour Court (Fővárosi Közigazgatási és Munakügyi Bíróság) and, in its final and affirmative second-instance judgment, the Budapest Regional Court (Fővárosi Törvényszék) confirmed that the lack of documentary evidence regarding an applicant’s personal identity is insufficient for rejecting their recognition as a stateless person if the relevant country of origin has officially confirmed the applicant’s lack of nationality and the applicant has made consistent statements about their identity and origin in previous proceedings. The two courts also ruled that it cannot be evaluated to the applicant’s detriment that their country of birth and previous residence failed to provide them with identity documents. Importantly, they also clarified that credibility concerns from previous asylum procedures (if they do not concern identity and origin) and the refusal to complete a travel document request form on one occasion are not material considerations for the statelessness determination procure.

This case summary includes a summary of the Budapest Administrative and Labour Court (Fővárosi Közigazgatási és Munkaügyi Bíróság), Judgment no. 20.K.33.955/2016/8. of 17 February 2017 and the Budapest Regional Court (Fővárosi Törvényszék), Judgment no. 1.Kf.650.032/2017/8. of 20 December 2017, which entirely confirmed the case on appeal.

The case concerned the statelessness determination of a former Yugoslav national born in Kosovo, who had been living in Hungary since 1993, and whose Serbian nationality was officially recognised by Serbia in 2007. The 2009 judgment of the Budapest Court (Fővárosi Bíróság) in Hungary upheld that such an official confirmation disproves the applicant’s statelessness, even if he had never lived in the Republic of Serbia. The Court emphasised that the only subject matter of statelessness determination is the applicability of the 1954 Convention’s definition of a stateless person while examining the compatibility of the applicant’s expulsion to the country of nationality with other human rights obligations (such as the right to family life or non-refoulement) does not correspond to this particular procedure.

The applicant appealed the order of the Rostov Regional Court dismissing his complaint against the order of the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation to extradite him for criminal prosecution to the law enforcement authorities of the Republic of Belarus. The applicant was a stateless individual and was in the process of applying for Russian nationality. Later, the applicant filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. The Judicial Board of the Supreme Court (Criminal Division) of the Russian Federation upheld the decision of the lower court.

The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation received a request from the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Estonia to extradite the applicant to the Republic of Estonia for criminal prosecution. The Deputy Prosecutor General granted the extradition request, which was then upheld by the St. Petersburg City Court upon the applicant’s appeal. The applicant then filed an appeal complaint with the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. The Judicial Board for criminal cases of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the Lower Court Ruling, rejecting the appeal of the applicant.

A stateless Palestinian was denied naturalisation as a German citizen by the competent authorities. Subsequently the applicant filed an action for naturalisation against the Free State of Bavaria (defendant). The Federal Administrative Court found that the applicant had to be considered to be a "stateless person" within the meaning of Art. 2 of the German Act to Reduce Statelessness of 29 June 1977 (Gesetz zur Verminderung der Staatenlosigkeit vom 29. Juni 1977 - StaatenlMindÜbkAG) and ordered the defendant to naturalise the applicant.

The applicant claims to have suffered material and non-material damage because of acts and omissions by officials of the Municipality of Sliven. Her claims relate to the refusal by officials to issue her identity documents because they did not consider her to be a Bulgarian national. The Burgas Administrative Court dismissed the case as unfounded because the applicant did not appeal to the competent administrative body(which was the Ministry of Justice and not the Municipality of Sliven).

The applicant, a formerly stateless person who lived in Russia, challenged an exclusion order issued by the Russian Ministry of Justice in 2015 on the basis of his presence in Russia being undesirable due to unspent criminal convictions. The applicant was granted Russian nationality in 2021, but claimed that the existing exclusion order made against him breached his rights under Article 8 ECHR because the effect of the exclusion order could still result in his expulsion from Russia. The ECtHR found the complaint inadmissible as it held that the exclusion order became unenforceable once the applicant obtained Russian nationality, making his complaint under Article 8 of the Convention unfounded.

The National Court (Audiencia Nacional) confirmed the rejection of the applicant's statelessness status on the ground that the presumption of Mauritanian nationality, derived from the fact that the applicant held a Mauritanian passport, had not been rebutted. 

The applicant, after having received statelessness status by a decision issued by the Court of Rome, applied for recognition of Italian nationality under Article 1(2) of Law 91/92 (which provides that: 'The child of unknown parents found in the territory of the Republic shall be considered a citizen by birth, unless the possession of another citizenship is proved'). This application was rejected by the municipality, the latter considering that the procedure provided for by Article 9(1)(e) of Law 91/92, which provides that Italian nationality may be recognised to 'stateless persons who have been legally residing in the territory of the Republic for at least five years', shall be applied instead.

The Court of Naples declared the Article 1(2) of Law 91/92 shall be applied in the specific case for the following reasons:

- Article 1(2) of Law 91/92 established a "presumption of birth on Italian territory" which could be rebutted only by a proof to the contrary, and such proof could only be proof that the person concerned had another citizenship (proof that was not possible in the specific circumstances, since it was undisputed that the applicant had a stateless status, having been recognised as such by the court in Rome);

- Stateless status has a "declaratory and not a constitutive" nature (as established by previous Supreme Court case law and in particular Supreme court decision no. 4823 of 4 May 2004 and Supreme court decision no. 16489 of 19 June 2019). Stateless status is by definition a situation of uncertainty and vulnerability which must therefore be limited;

- Article 1(2) of Law 91/92, providing for the automatic acquisition of citizenship (as confirmed by the previous Supreme Court decision no. 1053 of 14 January 2022) is precisely intended to prevent any statelessness status. 

- If the objective conditions for the automatic acquisition of citizenship laid down in Article 1(2) of Law 91/92 are met, the person concerned is granted a subjective right to citizenship which cannot be denied by the body responsible for assessing citizenship (i.e. the Ministry of Public Affairs).

In light of the above the Court of Naples declared the acquisition of Italian nationality by the stateless person concerned on the basis of Article 1(2) of Law 91/92.