their identity. It is not known how many of these may have been stateless or with undetermined nationality.327 Individuals who hold Stateless Person’s Cards in Kazakhstan did not report being detained on ground of their statelessness situation. In Turkmenistan, there has been no analysis to date of the number of stateless persons detained for holding out-of-date USSR passports, irregular residence or lack of identity documents. UNHCR is in regular contact with the State Migration Service of Turkmenistan (SMST) and cooperates with it when persons of concern to UNHCR have been detained. So far, it has never been asked to help with a stateless person held in detention. Also, no one attending the UNHCR focus group on statelessness reported they had been detained for passport irregularities. UNHCR is not in a position to comment on detention of stateless persons in Uzbekistan, where it has had no permanent presence since 2005. Finally, holders of former USSR passports who attended the UNHCR Participatory Assessments in Kyrgyzstan claimed that lack of valid identification puts them at real risk of detention. Although Kyrgyz NGOs have made the most detailed empirical study of statelessness in the region so far, they have yet to document detention of individuals with undetermined nationality. UNHCR does not know what legal aid or interpretation service is available to such detainees, or how they are treated in detention. It also does not know the reasons law enforcement authorities typically give for detaining them. 4.6 Access to legal remedies Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan each guarantee stateless persons the general right of access to a court and the protection of the law. They also have procedural equality with nationals of the country in any judicial proceedings.328 In Tajikistan, free legal assistance is guaranteed at all stages of investigation and trial,329 according to Article 92 of the Constitution of Tajikistan. In 2007, a Presidential Decree for the first time gave individuals the right to bring complaints to the Constitutional Court of Tajikistan. Previously they were not included among the subjects entitled to bring such complaints. Judges of the Constitutional Court told UNHCR that they would consider cases brought to them by stateless persons as well as by nationals. In Kazakhstan, the 1999 Civil Procedure Code guarantees the right to address the court and make statements, complaints, petitions and lead evidence in the person’s own language; the right to free interpreting services; and to free translation of case papers.330 Persons officially registered as stateless have exercised their right to access courts and state institutions,331 and told UNHCR that they had successfully used them to acquire nationality and resolve property questions. The National Ombudsman also protects the rights of stateless persons and has acted for them in a number of cases noted in his annual reports. Yet, stateless persons in remote areas of South-Kazakhstan said they had only limited access to free legal aid, through the services of a legal clinic. 327 19 May 2010 Press Conference in Astana, reported in Kazakhstan Today, http://www.zakon.kz/172726-iz-kazakhstanavydvoreno. 328 Article 20, 1993 Law No 1296-XII ‘On the Legal Status of Aliens in Kyrgyzstan’; Article 21, 1993 Law ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Turkmenistan, as amended in 2011; Article 21, 1997 Law No 500 ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Tajikistan, as amended in 2009; Article 18, 1995 Law No 2337 ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan does not have an equivalent law. 329 Article 92, 1994 Constitution of the Republic of Tajikistan. The forms of legal aid available from the Organisation of Advocates are defined by law. 330 Civil Procedure Code of Kazakhstan, Article 14. Persons who are not officially registered as ‘stateless’, or who otherwise have no valid ID, would encounter problems accessing the courts because they lack the documents necessary for paying court fees. 331 The legal clinic of the Human Rights Bureau NGO in Kazakhstan has provided free legal aid to stateless persons who approach it in Almaty and South-Kazakhstan Oblast. ~ 51 ~