recommended that individuals awaiting a determination of statelessness receive the same standards of treatment as asylum-seekers.”60 The implementation of the above-cited judgments in the practice of the MoI and its implications on the legal status of the applicants for the determination of statelessness under Section 8 (d) of the Asylum Act is not yet clear. No information is available about whether the applicants have, in practice, access to the rights arising from the status of an applicant for international protection as per the judgments. Such rights include the right to be covered by public health insurance, the right to be accommodated in the accommodation centres operated by the Refugee Facilities Administration or the right to work after six months from lodging the application. To date, it appears that the applicants for the determination of statelessness under Section 8 (d) of the Asylum Act do not yet enjoy these rights in practice. Only two of the applicants (several reminders were required for one applicant) were issued with an A4 document entitled the ‘applicant identity card’, which differs from the format of an applicant identity card normally issued to applicants for international protection. The document obtained by these applicants can serve for their basic identification and for proving their identity in various situations. However, it is not accompanied by any advice or explanation of their legal status and does not list the range of rights connected with the status of an applicant and attached to the identity card, which the MoI normally issues to applicants for international protection. June 2020 National legislation governing administrative expulsion has been found to not reflect the safeguards related to the expulsion of stateless persons stipulated in Article 31 of the 1954 Convention. The Aliens Act regulates the matter of expulsion of foreign nationals in Section 119 et seq., where stateless persons are subject to the same grounds and conditions for administrative expulsion as other foreigners.61 The case law of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic determined the above legal regulation to be incompatible with the 1954 Convention and confirmed the latter’s supremacy over the national law in individual cases.62 Obligations enshrined in Article 31 of the 1954 Convention are not sufficiently reflected in the regulation of the criminal sentence of expulsion either. The Criminal Code stipulates that the expulsion order cannot be imposed if the nationality of the perpetrator has not been established.63 However, according to domestic case law, this provision is not applicable to stateless persons.64 Similarly, legal provisions on the waiver of the expulsion order do not offer any guidance for the criminal courts in relation to the determination of whether or not a person is stateless.65 Effective application of Article 31 may, thus, be denied to some stateless persons. A viable solution to the situation of stateless persons who cannot be expelled despite the efforts of administrative bodies is missing in the current legislation. These persons are not recognized by the MoI to have so-called “impediments to leaving the territory of the Czech Republic”,66 which is a pre-condition to applying for a tolerated stay visa. Another barrier to obtaining this type of visa is that it can only be granted to persons not listed in the 60 The Supreme Administrative Court’s judgment of 12 March 2019, file no. 4 Azs 365/2018, para. 9, and judgment of 9 April 2019, file no. 7 Azs 488/2018, para. 11. 61 Stateless persons are specifically concerned only by Section 121 of the Residence of Foreign Nationals Act, which stipulates the following: “If any other country expresses its consent to admit a stateless person, such person may be expelled by administrative expulsion to that country.” This provision, thus, merely defines practical aspects of administrative expulsion of stateless persons but does not contain a special regulation of the reasons and conditions of the expulsion in accordance with Article 31 of the 1954 Convention. 62 Cf. Judgement of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic of 19 April 2018, Ref. No. 9 Azs 361/2017 – 33. 63 Section 80 (3)(a) of Act No. 40/2009 Coll., the Criminal Code, as amended. 64 Decision of the Czech Supreme Court of 16 December 2010, File No. 6 Tdo 1457/2010, published under No. 30/2011 Coll. of the Supreme Court. 65 Section 350h (4) of Act No. 141/1961 Coll., on criminal court proceedings (Code of Criminal Procedure), as amended. 66 Section 179 of the Aliens Act. UNHCR Czech Republic 21