Chapter 2 The Right to Nationality and Judgment TC/0168/13 of the Constitutional Court | 45 THE RIGHT TO NATIONALITY AND JUDGMENT TC/0168/13 OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT A. General considerations 75. Since the 1980s cases that illustrate how difficult it is and the obstacles for children born on Dominican territory of Haitian migrants to be registered and obtain documentation proving their Dominican nationality, have been documented. At first, officials at the Dominican civil registry offices refused to register the births of children born on Dominican territory of Haitian migrants on the pretext of the parents’ irregular migratory situation. The argument the authorities routinely used was that under the Constitution, children born of foreigners in transit did not qualify for Dominican nationality based on the principle of jus soli. 76. 63 64 The practice of refusing to register children of Haitian migrants with an irregular status in the Civil Registry Office was based on criteria of racial discrimination equating in transit foreigners with migrants with an irregular status and the latter with Haitians. In the Dominican Republic, Haitians are identified on the basis of ethnic and phenotypical characteristics. In practice, the decision as to which children would be registered and granted Dominican nationality and, which children would not, by virtue of the principle of jus soli was often based on the parents’ national origin or migratory situation, skin color (especially those with a dark-colored skin), command of the Spanish language, or surname 63. Since then, this practice has gradually expanded to the point that it has now been adopted into various measures, laws, and judicial decisions taken by the other branches of the Dominican State. Within this context, the Constitutional Court’s judgment TC/0168/13 of September 23, 2013, represented one more stage in a denationalization process underway in the Dominican Republic, in order to “protect its national identity” by arbitrarily and retroactively stripping Dominicans born to parents in an irregular migratory situation of their right to Dominican nationality, particularly in the case of those of Haitian descent. 64 See, Van WAAS, Laura, Nationality Matters: Statelessness under international law. Intersentia: Antwerp Oxford – Portland, 2008, p. 100. IACHR, Preliminary observations from the IACHR’s visit to the Dominican Republic: December 2 to 6, 2013. Santo Domingo, December 6, 2013, pp. 6-11. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights | IACHR