18 | PROTECTING STATELESS PERSONS FROM ARBITRARY DETENTION IN BULGARIA 3. KEY ISSUES OF CONCERN This section sets out and analyses the situation in Bulgaria in relation to the key issues of concern regarding prevention of arbitrary detention of stateless persons. 3.1 IDENTIFICATION & DETERMINATION PROCEDURES States have a human rights obligation to identify statelessness before subjecting people to immigration detention.69 Bulgaria does not yet apply this obligation. As mentioned in Section 2.2. of the report, Bulgaria does not yet have a dedicated statelessness determination procedure, but there is a draft law adopted at first reading in Parliament on 15 June 2016 that introduces such a procedure. However, as drafted currently, the status of a stateless person would be accessible only to persons who were born in or entered legally into the territory of Bulgaria and who at the same time hold a permanent or long-term residence permit. As such, the scope of the draft law would exclude the vast majority of stateless persons in the country, and would be contrary to Bulgaria’s obligations under the 1954 Statelessness Convention and under international human rights law. The draft, submitted before the Bulgarian Parliament on 28 April 2016 by the Bulgarian Government (‘Council of Ministers’) introduces in §22 a new Chapter Two "a", Articles 21b-21g, with the title: “Granting the status of stateless person in Bulgaria under the Law on Ratification of the Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons, adopted by the United Nations Organization in New York on September 28, 1954”.70 Currently, as of September 2016, the draft law is pending adoption at a final second reading.71 According to the Bulgarian law-making procedure, between the first and the second readings it is possible to make amendments to the concrete provisions of the law. In relation to the definition of stateless person, Article 21b(1) of the draft law provides: The status of stateless persons may be granted to a foreigner who was born or has entered legally on the territory of Bulgaria, has been granted long-term or permanent residence and who is not a citizen of any country in accordance with its legislation.” The proposed provision only includes foreigners who cumulatively meet the three conditions stated therein, excluding foreigners who did not enter Bulgaria legally and those lawfully residing foreigners who do not hold permanent or long-term residence permit. In comparison, the UNHCR Handbook and the UNHCR Guidelines on Statelessness NO.2 (HCR/GS/12/02), paragraph 17, state that “everyone in a State’s territory must have access to statelessness determination procedures” and