KONSTATINOV v. THE NETHERLANDS JUDGMENT 5 uncertainty about her actual citizenship – she should be regarded as a stateless person, as well as her arguments under Article 8 of the Convention. 21. The applicant lodged an appeal against this decision to the Regional Court of The Hague, together with an application for a provisional measure, i.e. a stay of deportation. On 18 November 2002, following a hearing held on 10 October 2002, the Regional Court endorsed the decision of the Deputy Minister and dismissed the appeal. As regards Article 8 of the Convention, it held: “It is not in dispute that there is 'family life' between the appellant, her husband and child. There is no question of an interference with this family life within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 8 of the Convention as the impugned decision does not entail the withdrawal of a residence title that enabled her to exercise that family life. The remaining question is whether [the Netherlands authorities] are under a positive obligation under Article 8 to enable the appellant to exercise her family life in the Netherlands. In order to determine the existence of such a positive obligation, a balancing exercise must be carried out – on the basis of reasonableness – between the interests of the person concerned and those of society as a whole. The Regional Court accepts the finding of [the Deputy Minister] that the appellant's interests are outweighed by the public interests pursued by [the Netherlands authorities]. In this balancing exercise, the Regional Court puts first that the countless, ever recurring antecedents of both the appellant and her husband weigh very heavily. The Regional Court further considers it of importance that the family's subsistence needs are met by public funds and that none of the family members holds Netherlands citizenship. As to the alleged statelessness of the appellant, the Regional Court notes that she stated at the outset of the present proceedings that she was holding Yugoslav citizenship and submitted a Yugoslav passport. It was only later that she declared to be stateless. It appears from the fax message of 28 June 2001 of the 's-Hertogenbosch Aliens Police that the appellant presented herself in order to obtain the return of her Yugoslav passport for the purpose of having her son registered in this passport. It is further relevant that the appellant and her son are registered under the above-cited citizenship in the Municipal Personal Records Database (Gemeentelijke Basisadministratie). For the above reasons, the Regional Court is of the opinion that the alleged statelessness of the appellant and her son has not been established and that it has not been demonstrated that the appellant's son could not follow her to the country of origin. According to the data from the Municipal Personal Records Database, the citizenship of the appellant's husband is unknown. [Pursuant to the relevant immigration rules], where it is registered in respect of an alien that the citizenship cannot be determined, or where – such as in the instant case – in the category citizenship the standard value 0000 ('unknown') is recorded, statelessness has not been established. Noting this as well as the fact that also the alleged statelessness of the appellant has by no means been established, the Regional Court does not find it demonstrated that the appellant's husband is stateless. As it has neither appeared that he is a recognised refugee, no objective obstacles have appeared for exercising family life in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or at least outside of the Netherlands.