SAHNI ARTICLE 3.3.21 (WORD) (DO NOT DELETE) 132 Gonzaga Journal of International Law 5/6/2021 7:21 PM Vol. 24:2 However, the applicant had resided in Croatia from the age of seventeen onwards.186 He had established all of his connecting factors with that country. The sole result was his long term and uninterrupted presence there. Hoti had relocated to Croatia by himself. He was permitted to enter as an Albanian refugee.187 As a minor, he shared his parents’ refugee status until his eighteenth birthday.188 He settled in the town of Novska and rarely left the community.189 Though his job prospects were limited he worked mainly as a car mechanic or farm hand.190 The applicant’s attempts to integrate in society and become economically independent demonstrated a “strong interest to live in Croatia.”191 The issue in Hoti was not whether Croatia should grant nationality to the applicant but whether Croatia should terminate a stateless person’s right of abode.192 The ECtHR determined that the stateless Applicant had an insecure residence status that was exacerbated by the State’s refusal to validate that foothold.193 This dismissal infringed the Applicant’s Article 8 rights to family and private life.194 The Applicant lived in Croatia alone. He was estranged from his siblings who were legal residents of other Member States, 195 and he had opted not to marry or have children due to his insecure residence status as a temporary migrant.196 His dearth of family ties had restricted his enjoyment of rights guaranteed by Article 8(1).197 It is significant that the Court confirmed that Article 8 safeguards the social identity198 of all persons including migrants. Social identity represents the individual’s nexus and social ties with his community.199 The EctHR clarified how Article 8 encourages basic social interaction as a participatory right. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. Id. ¶ 12. Id. ¶¶ 6-7, 18, & 50. Id. ¶ 50. Id. ¶ 125. Id. ¶¶ 14, 26, 32, & 133. Id. ¶ 34. Id. ¶¶ 65, 75, 79, & 117. Id. ¶¶ 75, 79. Id. ¶¶ 75, 142. Id. ¶¶ 7, 48. Id. ¶¶ 21, 75, 117, 119, 122, & 126. Id. ¶ 119. See Genovese v. Malta, App. No. 53124/09, Eur. Ct. H.R. ¶ 33 (2011) (stating, “[h]owever, as the Court has observed above, even in the absence of family life, the denial of citizenship may raise an issue under Article 8 because of its impact on the private life of an individual, which concept is wide enough to embrace aspects of a person’s social identity. While the right to citizenship is not as such a Convention right and while its denial in the present case was not such as to give rise to a violation of Article 8, the Court considers that its impact on the applicant’s social identity was such as to bring it within the general scope and ambit of that Article.”) 199. Hoti v. Croatia, App. No. 63311/14, ¶¶ 119, 131 (2018), http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng ?i=001-182448