Hungary After three years of permanent residence with established domicile, the stateless person can apply for naturalization, which is favorable treatment compared to foreign nationals seeking naturalization. Foreign nationals need to prove eight years of permanent residence. Upon request, the immigration authority may issue a travel document, which is valid for one year. Individuals whose application for statelessness status is rejected can lodge a request for judicial review of the negative decision with the Budapest Administrative and Labor Court within 15 days of the communication of the decision. Rejections are supported with reasoning and applicants can submit a further appeal to the Budapest Regional Court of Appeal and in some cases to the Curia (highest court) at third instance. In 2011 Hungary pledged to improve its SDP by introducing a quality assurance mechanism similar to the mechanism that operates for refugee status determination. To that end, the predecessor of the NDAP signed an agreement with UNHCR in 2012 to review the effectiveness of the implementation of the procedure. This project resulted in the establishment of a quality assurance mechanism within NDAP, including a Quality Assurance Manual for the Statelessness Determination Procedure and templates for interviews and decisions to be used by case workers. The regular exchanges and training sessions in which the NDAP and UNHCR participate help to harmonize decisionmaking and identify and address issues in the implementation of the SDP. From 2008 to 2019, 285 applications for statelessness status were received. The overall recognition rate was 68 percent. By December 2019, 146 individuals had been recognized as stateless in Hungary. Most of the accepted applications were submitted by applicants from the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia. U N H C R > G P P AC T I O N 6 : E S TA B L I S H I N G S TAT E L E S S N E S S D E T E R M I N AT I O N P R O C E D U R E S 31

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