CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE MEMBER STATES OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY 2020 have created stronger legal frameworks: the courts in Zambia, for example, ruled that a citizen is entitled to a passport, even though this was not at the time provided for in legislation.289 Zambia, together with South Africa and Zimbabwe among the SADC states, now provides explicitly for citizens to have a right to a passport – as does Angola, among the lusophone countries.290 In Lesotho, by contrast, the law states that “Passports shall be issued in the name of the King and remain the property of the Government”291; in 2000, the High Court ruled that the requirement to provide a statement from a chief attesting the applicant's citizenship for renewal of a passport was legitimate, and that possession of a current passport did not automatically qualify an applicant for a new passport.292 In 2014, however, the High Court reversed this position, stating that “although our Constitution does not explicitly give citizens the right to a passport, it explicitly guarantees them a right to freedom of movement” which, “by necessary implication, means that our citizens have a concomitant right to a passport”.293 The Passports and Travel Documents Act was repealed and replaced in 2018; the new version did not, however, explicitly affirm the right to a passport.294 As in the case of national identity cards, gender discrimination can make it more difficult to obtain a passport: a World Bank report noted that women cannot apply for a passport in the same way as married men in Botswana, Madagascar, Malawi, and Seychelles.295 Naturalisation Naturalisation is rare in most states in Africa. The conditions a person must fulfil in order to naturalise vary, but often leave a high level of discretion to the authorities, which may allow for arbitrary decision-making and discrimination. The conditions often exclude those individuals most in need of access to naturalisation, including stateless persons and refugees. It is indicative of the difficulty of naturalisation that there are few published statistics about the numbers naturalised. While the civil law states commonly publish the names of those naturalised in the official journal, the annual totals are not published; in the common law states there may be press releases when naturalisations are conducted, but the names or statistics are not required to be published. Those statistics that are available reveal that the numbers of naturalised persons vary hugely across countries, but are generally low.296 In response to questions posed for this report, Mozambique responded that the total 289 Cuthbert Mambwe Nyirongo v Attorney-General (1990-1992) ZR 82 (SC). See also from Kenya, Deepak Chamanlal Kamani v. Principal Immigration Officer and 2 Others [2007] eKLR, and for Nigeria, Obiora Chinedu Okafor, “The Fundamental Right to a Passport under Nigerian Law: An Integrated Viewpoint”, Journal of African Law 40, no. 1 (1996): 53–61. 290 Zambia Passport Act No.28 of 2916, sec. 5(1); Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996, art. 21(4); Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013, Art. 35(3); Angola Decreto n.º 3/2000, de 14 de Janeiro, art.4. 291 Lesotho Passport and Travel Documents Act No.15 of 1998, sec. 4. 292 Moeketsi Kutlo Seotsanyana v. Attorney General and Minister for Passport Control, High Court of Lesotho, Judgment of 13 July 2000. 293 Zwelakhe Mda v Minister of Home Affairs and Others (Constitutional Case No.4 of 2014) [2014] LSHC 30 (24 September 2014). 294 Lesotho Passport and Travel Documents Act No.5 of 2018. 295 Hanmer and Elefante, “Achieving Universal Access to ID”. Zambia information updated to reflect 2016 Passport Act. In Madagascar, the discrimination is based on the law combatting trafficking in persons: Loi N° 2014 -040 sur la lutte contre la traite des êtres humains; see also Elise Nandrasanela, “Voyage à l’extérieur – Restriction de sortie pour les femmes”, L'Express (Antananarivo), 5 October 2019. 296 For comparative statistics for the European Union, see “Acquisition of citizenship https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Acquisition_of_citizenship_statistics. UNHCR / December, 2020 statistics”, Eurostat, March 2020 74