STATELESSNESS AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY and identification issued by the State to citizens”, and this is confirmed in the Citizenship and Immigration Act.126 The Ugandan citizenship law adopted in 1999 also gives all citizens the right to a passport.127 Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and South Sudan do not have similar provisions. A passport is typically more difficult to obtain than a national identity card, and the application is subject to higher levels of scrutiny by the authorities. It is fairly common for people who have an ID card to find that their citizenship is questioned on applying for a passport. Additional vetting procedures are usually in place, and additional documentary evidence required. In Kenya, for example, a birth certificate must be provided to obtain a passport but not (for most people) for a national ID card.128 Access to naturalisation The provisions of the law on naturalisation may be misleading in giving an indication of the ability of longterm residents to acquire the nationality of their new home. There are few published statistics about the numbers naturalised in most African countries. However, those statistics that are available reveal that the numbers of naturalised persons vary hugely across the continent, and are generally low. This difficulty in naturalising is partly a matter of law but even more a matter of practice: the procedures tend to be heavy in bureaucratic requirements, subject to much discretion, and often require quite substantial outlay in official and unofficial fees. Vetting procedures relating to a person’s suitability to acquire nationality are normal in all countries around the world; however, vetting is extremely stringent in the East African countries. In the civil law countries, including Rwanda and Burundi, naturalisation is generally by presidential or ministerial decree, which must be published in the official gazette. A survey of the Rwandan gazettes for 2015 to 2017 revealed one naturalisation decree, for 71 people in July 2016 (as well as 13 who had renounced nationality).129 Burundi presidential decrees available on the presidency website indicate a total of 55 adults naturalised from 2011 to 2017, most of them men married to Burundians, with 48 minor children included in those decrees.130 Naturalisations are not published in the common law countries. In interviews for this report, the Tanzanian Immigration Department stated that 195 people had naturalised in total in 2014, and 463 in 2015 (this is an aggregate figure including married women, long-term residents, and the separate applications of minor children whose parents also naturalised; it excludes the extraordinary naturalisation process for refugees).131 In Tanzania, refugees have rarely been naturalised under the normal provisions (the exceptions may be for those who are most wealthy, or refugees from outside Africa). However, Tanzania is one of the African countries that has made the most positive efforts to grant citizenship to refugees, through mass outreach and 2 Others [2007] eKLR; see also Peter Mwaura, “Passport is a right for every citizen, not a privilege”, The Nation (Nairobi), 7 July 2007. 126 Constitution of Kenya, 2010, Article 12(1)(b); Citizenship and Immigration Act 2011, Section 22(1)(g). 127 Citizenship and Immigration Control Act 1999, Section 39: “Every Ugandan shall have the right to a passport or other travel documents.” 128 The application form for a Kenya passport states that “All applications must be accompanied by a previous passport, if any, or current national Kenya Identity Card, Birth Certificates plus certified photocopies of each.” In addition, it states that “Documentary evidence of Kenya citizenship must be produced” – although the only document that is stated by law to be prima facie evidence of Kenyan (or other) citizenship is, in fact, a passport (section 32, Citizenship and Immigration Act, 2011). Form 19 available at: http://www.immigration.go.ke/downloads/Form-19-Application%20for%20Kenya%20Passport.pdf. 129 Official Gazette No. 30 of 25/07/2016; Rwanda Official Gazette available at: http://primature.gov.rw/index.php?id=42 130 Décret No. 100/41 du 16 février 2011; Décret No. 100/96 du 24 mars 2011; Décret No. 100/163 du 16 juin 2011; Décret No. 100/293 du 18 décembre 2013; Décret No. 100/21 du 29 janvier 2015; Décret No. 100/168 du 26 mai 2015; Décret No. 100/048 du 17 octobre 2015, and Décret No.100/ 0134 du 30 juin 2016. Burundi Presidential decrees available at: http://presidence.gov.bi/. Fees for Burundi were established by the Ordonnance ministérielle conjointe No. 550/540/713 du 17 juin 2004 fixant les frais d’enquête et de publication relatifs à la naturalisation. See Burundi’s second periodic report to the Human Rights Committee, UN Doc. CCPR/C/BDI/2, 28 May 2013. 131 Interview, Department of Immigration, 16 July 2016. UNHCR / September 2018 35