14 | PROTECTING STATELESS PERSONS FROM ARBITRARY DETENTION IN BULGARIA a stateless person, however, it is not clear what the conditions to consider a person as stateless are. Interestingly, the Law on the Bulgarian Identity Documents,35 in its Article 14, paragraph 1, point 8, provides that one of the identity documents issued by the Republic of Bulgaria to “foreigners residing in the country” is “a certificate for travel abroad to a stateless person”36 which is issued by the Ministry of the Interior to “foreigners who have the status of a stateless person and a permanent residence permit on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria”.37 The question of determining the status of a stateless person remains. The draft law introducing the status of a stateless person and a determination procedure On 15 June 2016 the Bulgarian Parliament adopted at first reading a draft Law Amending and Supplementing the Law on Foreign Nationals in the Republic of Bulgaria,38 which for the first time introduces a statelessness determination procedure. We will look into more detail at the provisions of the draft law in section 3.1. of this report. 2.2.2. Return and removal of illegally residing migrants: the issue of the destination country Deportation and expulsion orders issued by Bulgaria do not state the destination country. There is no provision in Bulgarian national law that obliges the authorities to ascertain the destination country before issuing a removal decision and before detaining a person. The only possibility envisaged in Article 44a, paragraph 2 of the LFRB is for the authority that issued the expulsion order (on national security grounds) to issue a separate order stating to which country the migrant should not be removed. This new order is issued once there is a final judicial act, which establishes that, if the person is expelled to that country, their life and freedom would be threatened and they would be exposed to a risk of persecution, torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. The law explicitly states that this order cannot be appealed. The above situation is exemplified in the case of Mr. Auad, who complained against violation of his human rights by Bulgaria before the ECtHR in Strasbourg.39 Mr. Auad, a stateless Palestinian from Lebanon, had subsidiary protection status in Bulgaria. In November 2009 the chairman of the SANS issued two orders against Mr. Auad: one for his expulsion on national security grounds and a second one for his detention. Mr. Auad was detained for the purpose of removal for 18 months, the maximum period of detention allowed by the EU Return Directive 2008/115. After that he was released as an undocumented migrant. In its Judgment of 11 October 2011, the ECtHR found that Bulgaria had violated Articles 3, 5 and 13 of the ECHR.40 The Court inter alia noted that since it is not required by the national law, the expulsion order did not specify the country of destination. The Court saw this as problematic with regard to the requirement of legal certainty inherent in all Convention provisions: Where deprivation of liberty is concerned, legal certainty must be strictly complied with in respect of each and every element relevant to the justification of the detention under domestic and Convention law. In cases of aliens detained with a view to deportation, lack of clarity as to the destination country could hamper effective control of the authorities’ diligence in handling the deportation”.41 The Court also found that the general measures in execution of its judgment should include such amendments to LFRB or other Bulgarian legislation, and such change of administrative and judicial practice in Bulgaria so as to ensure that inter alia “the destination country should always be indicated in a legally binding act and a change of destination should be amenable to legal challenge”.42 This measure indicated by the Court has not been implemented by Bulgaria, which has continued to be found to have violated the Convention provisions in similar cases such as in the case of Amie and Others v Bulgaria.43 In Bulgarian law there are no legal provisions which protect stateless persons from removal. The national law provision that stateless persons might invoke in their defence against removal is Article 44, paragraph 2 of the LFRB which states that: In imposing the compulsory administrative measures competent authorities shall take into account the duration of residence of the foreigner in the Republic of Bulgaria, the categories of vulnerable persons, the existence of proceedings under the Law on Asylum and Refugees or proceedings for renewal of the residence permit or other authorization offering a right of residence, his family situation, and the existence of family, cultural and social ties with the country of origin.” 2.2.3. Immigration detention In Bulgaria detention of stateless and unreturnable persons takes place within the general immigration detention regime. There is no specific legal regulation that explicitly prohibits immigration detention of stateless persons. As a matter of long-standing practice, Bulgarian authorities use immigration detention as a measure of first resort with weak procedural guarantees to challenge its lawfulness and duration.44 The adoption of the Return Directive 2008/115/EC has introduced judicial review and a time limit to immigration detention (eighteen months, split in six month blocks). However, implementation of detention has not been reduced as a result.45 On the contrary, with the substantial increase of