Nationality not Naturalization - The Rights of Lebanese Women to Full Citizenship and to Confer their Nationality to their Children the Decree. If a child is born before the naturalization fees are paid and because this child is born from a non-Lebanese father, it is not permissible to be registered administratively or by a single judge; rather, the child must obtain legal nationality in accordance with the principles, to be registered in the Lebanese records.39 What if the registration included a mistake in the naturalized Lebanese person’s family name or family status? Article 21 of Decree 8837 of 15 January 1932 allows for correcting mistakes in the Personal Status Record since this does not constitute an amendment to the Naturalization Decree, but rather ratification of the error at the stage of checking the facts for registration records, which is within the jurisdiction of the administrative judiciary. The third paragraph of the aforementioned article, added by Decree 1822 of September 16, 1944, also authorizes civil courts to consider the nationality of the person whose registration was administratively removed and re-registered in Lebanese records.40 Under Article 77 of the Statute of the State Consultative Council and Article 4 of Law No. 15 of 1925, which grants minor children the right to benefit from the nationality of their father de jure and with the force of law, the Naturalization Decree remains in force and is open to its effects unless a decision is passed by the competent court to nullify it or suspend its implementation. Consequently, in order to register the non-registered child “Maktoumi al Qaid” on the record of the father, the father must be Lebanese on the date of birth of whose registration is required, and this can only be achieved after the implementation of the Naturalization Decree in the Personal Civil Status Records, including payment of due fees. The Implementation of the decree by the father after the birth of the child does not have any retroactive effect; effectively, the issue lies in the naturalized person accepting the naturalization.41 Naturalization Decree 5247, dated 20 June 1994 On 20 June 1994, Naturalization Decree 5247/94 was issued, without the numbers of persons who had obtained Lebanese nationality. This naturalization aims to legalize the status of a large number of persons who have formed a kind of de facto citizenship with the State and which had to be enshrined in a decree legalizing the relationship between them and the State.42 In the case of persons who are eligible to obtain Lebanese nationality by birth, as in the cases of non-registered persons “Maktoumi al-Qaid” who have been naturalized, naturalization has put them in a precarious legal status on the basis that naturalized persons do not enjoy equal rights with Lebanese who are entitled to nationality by birth, as they lose the Lebanese nationality they acquired by naturalization if they committed a crime against the State’s security as stipulated in Decree No. 10828 of 9 October 1962. (a) Course of the naturalization Decree 5247/1994 The Maronite Association appealed against Decree 5247 of 1994 before the State Consultative Council because the contested Decree did not respect the basic provisions of Law No. 15 of 1925 regarding the necessity to conduct a comprehensive investigation into every request granting nationality to the concerned person on the basis of the law. In addition, the appeal was also based on the grounds of errors in judgement because it included tens of thousands of persons without following the prescribed rules, which violate the law, customs, traditional practices and procedural irregularities, which tainted the decision with flaws to modulating power.43 The Maronite Association also indicated that there are persons and groups included in the contested decree who are eligible for Lebanese nationality, and it favours granting them citizenship, first and foremost “descendants of Lebanese origin, Arabs of Wadi Khaled and members of sects who are deprived or experienced all kinds of suffering and who meet the legal requirements”.44 In order to verify the facts presented by the Maronite Association, the State Consultative Council decided to assign a committee of three advisers to assist the consultant Rapporteur in the investigation. During its work, which lasted for more than one year, from 5 January 1998 to 3 February 1999, the Commission examined 335 naturalization applications from more than 50,000 files, most of which contained more than one application. As a result, the Commission concluded that the total number of applications fall into four categories: • Maktoumi al-Qaid (mostly Arabs of Wadi Khaled). • Persons holding Qaid ad-Dars or under study. • Persons from villages known as the Seven Villages. • Foreigners (holders of different nationalities).45 The Commission concluded in its report that the contents of the files related to naturalized persons contained varying probative value documents. Some forms did not mention the existence of records at the General Security, some investigations were incomplete, and imprisoned persons submitted some applications for naturalization. The State Consultative Council considered the contested decree an individual administrative decision, but given the number of people it covers, it is also considered a collective administrative decision that may be wholly or partially annulled if such partial annulment does not radically affect the whole decree and its entity fully. The fragmentation of this revocation review and restricting it in light of the documents presented to only a portion of persons covered in the contested decree — requires in addition to this council examining all the files of naturalization applications to verify their validity and fulfilment of their conditions — separating and excluding those whom the Maronite Association considers eligible for citizenship and prefers to grant them separately from other applications that need to be annulled.46 In order for the State Consultative Council to carry out the aforementioned tasks, those included in the decree must be brought in to listen to their statements and defences before determining the fate of their right to the affiliation given to them, with the necessity 11