stateless people the right to legally reside in Bulgaria, protecting them from being treated as undocumented immigrants and facing the risk of detention. However, the residence permit includes important restrictions, which denies them the opportunity to finally achieve a real sense of belonging or to contribute on an equal basis with the rest of society. According to the Law on Labour Migration and Labour Mobility, people with a ‘continuous’ residence permit are not given access to the labour market and cannot sign a labour contract. This rule has some exceptions, but stateless persons are not included on the list of exceptions. Holders of ‘continuous’ residence permits are also outside the scope of the health insurance system and thus health care to stateless persons is not covered by the National Health Insurance fund. Poor identification of statelessness 18. A persistent challenge documented in research relates to the proper identification of stateless persons in Bulgaria.6 For example, upon detention in Bulgaria stateless persons are usually assigned a country of origin that they are deemed to have come from or with which they have some cultural or historical links. In removal and detention orders, stateless persons are identified as citizens of those countries. According to the official statistics of the Migration Directorate as of 26 August 2019,7 in 2019 so far only two stateless persons have been detained (the same statistics state that in 2018 zero stateless persons were detained). This suggests poor identification of statelessness on the part of the authorities, as in 2019, FAR has provided legal aid to 12 detained stateless persons at the Bousmansti detention centre alone. Arbitrary and prolonged detention of stateless persons 19. The grounds for immigration detention in Bulgarian law include to effect removal, and to initially establish identity and assess administrative measures to be taken. There are limited safeguards against the arbitrary detention of stateless people, as the identification of a country of removal is not required by law prior to issuing a removal decision and ordering detention. This remains so, despite the 2011 European Court of Human Rights ruling in the Auad v Bulgaria case, 8 which found (among others) a violation of Article 5 of the Convention (right to liberty and security) on the basis that “legal certainty is required in respect of each and every element relevant to the justification of detention and a lack of clarity over the destination country could hamper effective scrutiny of the authorities’ actions.”9 20. The problem is aggravated by the poor identification of statelessness upon (and during) detention. Bulgaria has adopted the maximum time limit of detention permissible under EU law, 18 months. Despite legislative amendments in 2017 that introduced two less coercive measures in addition to weekly reporting (a financial guarantee and a passport surrender), these have not yet been applied in practice as alternatives to detention. The 6European Network on Statelessness and Foundation for Access to Rights, Protecting Stateless Persons from Arbitrary Detention in Bulgaria, 2016. 7 Obtained by FAR as part of the Statelessness Index update: Ministry of the Interior, Decision No.812104/26.08.2019 to grant access to public information. 8 European Court of Human Rights, Judgment on the Case of Auad v. Bulgaria (Application no. 46390/10), 11 October 2011. 9 European Court of Human Rights, Information note on the Court’s case law, No 145, October 2011, available at: https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/CLIN_2011_10_145_ENG_895347.pdf 5