SEEKING NATIONALITY THE JUDICIAL ODYSSEY OF APPLICANTS CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS The findings of this study show the struggle the stateless persons endure in their attempt to end their statelessness in courts throughout the whole process starting from building their legal file to court proceedings and execution. The face both subjective and objective obstacles that hinders them from reaching the solution. The most important one is the lack of reliable and hard evidence to prove their right to the Lebanese nationality. The majority of stateless individuals do not possess the necessary proof of evidence to support their cases whether related to accurate factual information to possession of related documents that substantiate their claimed facts, especially if these factual events date back to distant times as is the case for most stateless individuals who are descendants of stateless ancestors. One of the reasons why stateless persons lack such proof is due to their oral culture and way of living before the creation of state rules and system. The majority live in rural areas and are illiterate. They did not keep copies of their documents as they did not know their importance and potential use in the future; some did not even have any documents originally. As such this is extremely or quasi-impossible to provide evidence for those who inherited their statelessness from their ancestors that go back to around 100 years today. This the case of the majority who are born in Lebanon but their birth was assisted by unofficial midwives, hence no birth notification, they cannot prove one main legal condition, i.e., born in Lebanon. They have to go through a long way to provide witnesses to give formal statements and hereto face obstacles and difficulties to find individuals still alive who witnessed the events of birth in Lebanon. This is further aggravated with the absence of a national population data information. The lack of proof is reflected in the entire course of the lawsuit, reaching the final decision, which usually lacks a strong realistic, or even legal, basis – especially in relation to denying the individual the nationality – due to the lack of an integrated mechanism to gather proof and information from various sources by the court, along with the agencies and authorities assigned with helping it build the case. However, for registration lawsuit, the DNA tests requested systematically by the courts today is being used as of proof of evidence of whether or not the biological filiation exists, regardless of the strength of the existing evidence and whether or not filiation is contested. Yet, this method is creating a kind of dual legal system. On the one hand, the Shari’a Court rulings still constitute a key document required in almost all registration and nationality lawsuits; on the other hand, their probative value is invalidated if it contradicts the results of DNA tests. This is clearly contrary to the system of civil status laws which give religious courts the authority to decide upon civil status matters knowing that such courts follow the principle of the presumption of paternity, meaning that any child born within the framework of marriage is considered to be the child of the husband unless the latter denies kinship under very specific conditions and in exclusive cases only. In addition, the lack of information regarding the legal procedures is quasi common among laypersons in Lebanon. This is more acute when it comes to stateless persons who are marginalized and do not benefit from any support system. Rare are the individuals that know the rights they are entitled to and how, if any, they can access and obtain them. There are no official sources of information for the general public as there is no national mechanisms to disseminate information to the public and enhance the ability to access information. But contrary to what it should be, non-specialists give the wrong advice. Due to lack of official dissemination of information many stateless persons rely on advices from non-experts who give them inaccurate or incomplete advice that have negative consequences and results. As such, instead of solving their situation they fall into more problems and difficulties to redress their judicial files. Even if stateless persons decide to build their legal files to submit a registration or nationality lawsuit, they are hindered to proceed when they realize the unaffordable relatively high cost of litigation and lawsuits, starting with the cost of DNA tests to obtaining all the documents requested by the different authorities, and alongside the expensive attorney fees, let alone the time they need to dedicate to follow the long court proceedings that entails absence from work and extra transportation costs. All these costs have to be taken in charge by the individuals as there is no State legal aid system in Lebanon available to these individuals in a methodical and systematic manner to lessens the chances of reducing the burden of high costs. The lack of State legal aid system and the high cost of litigation hinders many stateless persons from ending their statelessness through the only available legal solution today. SEEKING NATIONALITY | IN CONCLUSION FRONTIERS RIGHTS Judicial Proceedings with Indefinite Time Limits From the objective factors’ perspective that hinders stateless persons from submitting registration or nationality lawsuits, especially nationality lawsuits, as the State is a Party in the lawsuit, is the long indefinite time limits of the court proceedings amounting to several years in many cases. The long court proceedings are due to many reasons related to how the judicial system is functioning today. One of the main reasons is the way the courts conduct their investigation. They rely heavily on the security services. Yet, the court notification requests do not specify the core substantive matter to investigate nor give a specific deadline to receive the investigation reports. These requests may take months, and sometimes more. Further, despite the long period to complete the investigation, the investigations report rarely provide any additional or new information. as regards the elements presented in the case, and 88