Birth registration and the prevention of statelessness in Europe Issues with recognition of paternity Issues with recognition of paternity can result in a child’s nationality remaining undetermined if the father’s identity and nationality are unclear or unconfirmed. This is particularly important for children whose mothers cannot confer their nationality to them due to gender discrimination in the laws of their country of nationality. Some countries in the Index have reported issues with recognition of paternity, for example Germany, Malta, and Slovenia. In Slovenia, there are reports of administrative practices preventing the registration of paternity where foreign parents cannot produce a marriage certificate, with no safeguard in place to ensure that a child does not remain with undetermined nationality for a period over five years. There are also reports of issues in Germany with recognition of paternity for non-married parents, including fees, suspension of paternal recognition due to credibility issues, and difficulties securing appointments with Civil Registries and Child Welfare Offices. In Malta, there is no clear legal framework for determining a child’s nationality in cases where they may ‘otherwise be stateless’. Practice suggests that there is no automatic assessment procedure. When the parents are married and both are Maltese, the child is presumed to be Maltese. However, there used to be discrimination in recognition of paternity in the case of unmarried parents where only the mother was Maltese, in which case the child was presumed to be Maltese, but where only the father was Maltese, a procedure had to be triggered requiring evidence of paternity or else Maltese nationality was not automatically recognised for the child. In the 2011 Genovese case, the European Court of Human Rights found Malta’s decision to deny nationality to a person born to an unmarried Maltese father and British mother to be in violation of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.47 The Maltese Citizenship Act was later amended to remove this gender discrimination and now provides for the assumption of Maltese nationality in case of unmarried parents even when only the father is Maltese, the difference still lying in the evidence required to prove the parent-child relation. Whilst evidence of maternity may be easier to provide, the father’s details on the birth certificate, which requires confirmation of paternity from the father, will constitute the required evidence of paternity to confirm the child’s entitlement to Maltese nationality. To ensure that all children have their births registered regardless of their or their parents’ residence or documentation status (or other aspects of their identity), international norms and good practice urge States to prohibit data-sharing between health or registration officials and immigration enforcement authorities. 48 Most countries featured in the Statelessness Index do not have mandatory reporting requirements for public officials to report people with irregular residence status to immigration authorities, but few explicitly prohibit this in law or guidance. An explicit firewall between immigration authorities and public services is the safest way to ensure that people can access their rights to healthcare, civil registration and other public services, free from the fear of being subject to immigration enforcement actions in practice.49 17