SEEKING NATIONALITY THE JUDICIAL ODYSSEY OF APPLICANTS In principle, these Jus Solis provisions should be applied administratively. The law does not specify any exception. Further, the Registration of Civil Personal Status Events law does not stipulate any exception for any birth registration regardless if children are born to Lebanese fathers, or born in Lebanon to foreign parents or born to parents who do not have a nationality. Indeed, up until 1966, the birth of children that fall under Article 1, para 2 & 3 were administratively registered. This is justified on the basis that the administration is implementing the Court of Cassation Decision no. 52 issued in 1966. The decision related to Article 3 of Legislative Decree no. 353 of 16/3/1943. In this decision, the court separated the procedures and competent authorities between registration requests in the census and declaration of personal status events. The former should be submitted to the competent court, which shall issue a decision to proceed; and the latter the administrative authorities in charge shall record them directly without the need for a judicial decision. Hence, the Cassation Court distinguished between the registration of a new civil status record in the census and declarations of personal status events in existing records.31 This decision aimed to set a specific time limit for people who had not presented themselves for registration in the census in 1932. In reality, in this decision, the court addressed the legal vacuum associated and was set as the rule from that date onward. This policy was confirmed by the Acting Director of the Civil Status Directorate General of Civil Status to FRH in 2013.32 It is our opinion that the Court’s decision contradicts the legal provisions that state clearly that persons that fall under Article 1 (2) & (3) are Lebanese by law and hence should automatically be registered administratively. Further and ironically, the Civil Personal Status authorities do register a new civil personal status record for naturalized persons and for foundlings! • RAMI & HADI WERE BORN IN 1991 AND 1996 RESPECTIVELY. THEY ARE BORN TO A LEBANESE MOTHER AND A MAKTOUM ALQAYD FATHER. They married at the religious court. The mother did not register her marriage in her personal status record. Their father is an illegitimate child (born out of rape). For unknown reason, his mother did not register him under her personal status record. In 1980, he filed a lawsuit to be registered under his mother’s record. He lost the case at the Cassation level. The Court rejected the case on jurisdictional procedural grounds for the lawsuit was filed before the Single Civil Judge while, as an adult, it should have been filed before the first instance courts. In 1986, the children’s mother rectified her marital status to “married to (….) who is unregistered (Maktoum alQayd)”. In 1994, the father filed a second lawsuit before the Court of First Instance. He lost it again at appeal level on grounds that the mother’s acknowledgment of affiliation occurred when he was an adult. FRH assigned an attorney to file a nationality lawsuit for Rami and Hadi on jus soli arguing that they were born in Lebanon and have birth notification issued by a legal midwife and the mother’s marriage is registered in her personal status record that clearly indicates that the father does not hold the Lebanese or a foreign nationality. SEEKING NATIONALITY | PART 2 FRONTIERS RIGHTS Jus Soli Lawsuits on Grounds of Article 1 (2) of Decision 15/1925 Children born to stateless parents fall under Article 1(2) on ground that they are born in Lebanon and did not acquire any nationality by affiliation. These cases face difficulties to build their case to file a nationality lawsuit as the majority lack prove of the required legal conditions. The lawsuits filed by the attorney-at-law assigned by FRH particularly highlight gender discrimination in the nationality law such as the case of children born in Lebanon to Lebanese or Syrian mothers who are unable to transfer their nationality to their children, particularly if they are married to unregistered men (Maktoum alQayd). 44