refused. 49 The law specifically prohibited any effects of its measures on the right to
acquire Slovenian citizenship. In 2013, as a measure to implement the ECtHR judgement
in the case of Kurić and Others v. Slovenia, a law on compensations was adopted.50 The
compensations awarded were low and the law completely excluded the erased who were
still left without a permanent status in Slovenia or its citizenship. Slovenia never adopted
any measures to facilitate the acquisition of Slovenian citizenship by the erased, denying
any responsibility towards the erased that remained stateless.51
Recommendations
24. Based on the above information, the co-submitting organisations urge reviewing States
to make the following recommendations to Slovenia:
I.
Amend the law to bring the definition of a stateless person in national law in line
with the definition provided in the 1954 Convention definition.
II.
Take concrete steps to improve the recording of statelessness by harmonising and
defining statistical categories used by different agencies; include the recording
and counting of stateless individuals in the census and consider conducting a
comprehensive national mapping study to provide a reliable estimate of the
statelessness population in Slovenia.
III.
Establish a dedicated statelessness determination procedure in law and in line
with UNHCR Guidance and good practice and fulfil its obligations to stateless
persons under the 1954 Convention, including to grant them a residence permit,
right to work, study and facilitated naturalisation; treat stateless children without
legal residence the same as those with residence rights in line with the best
interests of the child; and ensure that public officials and registration officials are
trained to accurately identify statelessness and consider it as a relevant
circumstance.
IV.
Take steps to protect stateless persons from arbitrary detention by introducing a
statelessness determination procedure and protection status, as well as
embedding consideration of statelessness as a juridically relevant fact in all
decisions to detain; introduce periodic judicial review in law; and improve access
to effective remedies for detainees.
49
Information provided by the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Slovenia, 31 August 2015.
Act Regulating the Compensation for Damage Sustained as a Result of Erasure from the Register of Permanent
Residents, 21 November 2013.
51 It is important to note that the erasure itself did not cause statelessness. The erasure was a deprivation of
permanent residence status in Slovenia and the erased people in most cases had the nationality of another successor
state of the former Yugoslavia. Nevertheless, a smaller group within this population was left stateless due to the
inconsistent nationality policies within the former Yugoslavia and of the successor states. The erasure significantly
then deteriorated the situation of these stateless individuals as they also lost their tie to the country in which they
have lived (some of them for decades).
50
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