registration system asserts that all children born in Hungary shall be registered at birth.68 Births are entered in the registry regardless of the status of parents. 35. The births of all children born in Hungary must be notified within one day of birth to the civil registrar by the head of the hospital69 or the respective lead medical professional assisting during the birth if born outside a hospital.70 The civil registrar will examine the child's nationality upon registration.71 If the child's nationality or statelessness is not proven, they will be registered as 'unknown nationality' in the birth registry,72 which causes significant problems for the child later in life as there is no later procedure for them to establish their nationality and to rectify the record of ‘unknown nationality’.73 Due to these rules, children born to non-Hungarian parents are regularly registered at birth as being of ‘unknown nationality’. 74 Furthermore, the UN Human Rights Committee has recently found that failure to identify statelessness and assess a child’s nationality status, by registering the child as having ‘unknown nationality’ for a prolonged period of time, led to a violation of the right to nationality.75 36. State authorities may not perceive most children concerned as not having obtained any nationality at birth, because it may appear from the legislation of the country of origin that they inherit their parents’ – or at least their father’s – nationality.76 As a result, these children cannot benefit from the declaration safeguard of the Citizenship Act, even if it later occurs that the state of presumed nationality does not consider them as nationals under the operation of its law. 77 There are no specific rights or forms of protection attached to the condition of ‘unknown nationality’,78 impacting on the enjoyment of other rights enshrined in the CRC. ISSUE 2 – Identifying and determining statelessness in order to ensure stateless persons’ access to economic and social rights 37. Identifying stateless people in the country is the first step to providing them adequate protection and rights in line with international law. The object and purpose of a statelessness determination procedure (SDP) is to identify and determine statelessness and prevent human rights violations against stateless people, whilst reducing statelessness through facilitated naturalisation within a reasonable timeframe and providing a clear pathway to acquiring a nationality. Although Hungary has an SDP in 68 Law-Decree 17 of 1982 on Civil Registration, Marriage and Names, Section 1 (2) (a); Act I of 2010 on Civil Registration Procedures (in force as of 1 July 2014), Section 1 (3) (a) 69 Law-Decree 17 of 1982 on Civil Registration, Marriage and Names, Section 9 (2); Act I of 2010 on Civil Registration Procedures (in force as of 1 July 2014), Section 61 (3) 70 Government Decree 35/2011 of 21 March on the rules, conditions of and exclusion grounds from birth outside a medical institution, Section 12 (6) 71Law-Decree 17 of 1982 on Civil Registration, Marriage and Names, Section 13 (1); Act I of 2010 on Civil Registration Procedures (in force as of 1 July 2014), Section 16 (1) 72 Law-Decree 17 of 1982 on Civil Registration, Marriage and Names, Section 13 (4); Act I of 2010 on Civil Registration Procedures (in force as of 1 July 2014), Section 16 (4) 73 https://index.statelessness.eu/country/hungary 74 Gábor Gyulai, Nationality Unknown? An Overview of the Safeguards and Gaps Related to the Prevention of Statelessness at Birth in Hungary, Hungarian Helsinki Committee, January 2014, p. 8: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5310640b4.html. 75 Zhao v. the Netherlands (2020) CCPR/C/130/D/2918/2016 (UN Human Rights Committee, 28 December 2020). 76 Gábor Gyulai, Nationality Unknown? An Overview of the Safeguards and Gaps Related to the Prevention of Statelessness at Birth in Hungary, Hungarian Helsinki Committee, January 2014, p. 17: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5310640b4.html. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid, p. 18. 11