SAHNI ARTICLE 3.3.21 (WORD) (DO NOT DELETE) Spring 2021 Loss of Nationality Rights 5/6/2021 7:21 PM 131 process.172 It is noteworthy that the Court is referring to the Host State in particular since the stateless applicant had all his social ties and connecting factors there. Badri Hoti had lived in Croatia for four decades on a temporary resident visa basis.173 The Court deemed that Croatia had erred in 1993-1995 by removing Hoti’s name from the registers of domicile after denying citizenship.174 The act of erasing documented identification was arbitrary and unlawful.175 That State imposed anonymity also put Hoti in a “legal limbo.”176 It meant that Hoti could not access public benefits like health insurance or his pension.177 Nor could Hoti work legally or move freely within Croatia.178 The absence of identity documentation in Croatia augmented the ECtHR view that the applicant was a stateless migrant, and the Court initially found that the applicant was stateless on these grounds.179 The applicant was of Albanian descent.180 His parents were political refugees who relocated to the former SFRY (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and now Kosovo) before his birth.181 They possessed SFRY citizenship at the time the applicant was born in 1962.182 On the contrary, Hoti’s birth certificate did not mention the citizenship of the SFRY or of any country, including Albania.183 In 2015 the Albanian Embassy in Croatia disclosed that Hoti was never an Albanian citizen.184 The fact that no State claimed Hoti as a national clearly characterized Hoti as a ‘stateless person’ under Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention.185 172. Hoti v. Croatia, App. No. 63311/14, ¶¶ 118, 123 (2018), http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng ?i=001-182448 173. Id. ¶¶ 7, 7-17, 27, 30, 45-47, 55-57, & 125-127. 174. Id. ¶¶ 52, 89, 90, 97, 104, & 114. The Government of Croatia disputed it had implemented an “erasure process” against former SFRY nationals after June 1991 (¶ 104). 175. Kuric v. Slovenia, 2012-IV Eur. Ct. H.R. ¶¶ 31-33, 360-362 (Mar. 12, 2014). 176. Hoti v. Croatia, App. No. 63311/14, ¶ 97 (2018), http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001 -182448; see also United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], Submission by the Office of the UNHCR in the Case of Bedri Hoti v. Croatia, Application No. 63311/14, ¶ 5.1 (Filed July 3, 2015) https://www.refworld.org/docid/560a2cdb4.html (stating that non-access to state identity documents placed applicants in a “legal limbo”). The Applicants in Girls Yean and Bosico (ser. C) No. 130 faced similar obstacles. 177. Hoti v. Croatia, App. No. 63311/14, ¶¶ 97-98 (2018), http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i =001-182448 178. Id. ¶¶ 52, 99. 179. Id. ¶¶ 116-117, 128. 180. Id. ¶ 5. 181. Id. ¶¶ 6-7, 109. 182. Id. ¶¶ 93, 127. 183. Id. ¶¶ 24, 34, 54, 58, 110, 127, 130, & 138. 184. Id. ¶¶ 25, 37, & 57. 185. Id. ¶¶ 65, 93 (Paragraph 93 explains that after the SFRY was dissolved, various State documents indicated but did not clearly or expressly name any nationality, and further explaining the Court found the applicant was not responsible for inconsistencies and did not intend to “mislead it with regard to his citizenship.”).