Chapter 3. The Council of Europe “Moreover, on a more practical level, it appears that the applicant is currently stateless; thus, as the situation stands to date, it cannot be said that he is under a threat of expulsion […] as there is no guarantee that the Egyptian authorities would accept him, nor is it likely that he could be removed to another country. In any event, such arrangements would take a certain amount of time, and in the event of a removal order being issued and steps being taken in respect of its execution, the applicant would still have a possibility of pursuing the relevant remedies.”724 Some have observed that it almost seems as if it does not matter that the person has become stateless.725 Nonetheless, the Court did consider the merits of the complaint regarding the deprivation of citizenship and its consequences under Article 8 of the ECHR. The ECtHR does not distinguish between the situations where acquisition of citizenship is arbitrarily denied (cf. the Karassev case) or where nationality is revoked726, such as in the present case, and goes on to establish whether this revocation was arbitrary. It finds that the deprivation was in accordance with the law and accompanied by the necessary procedural safeguards, and is therefore not arbitrary and can as such not raise an issue under Article 8. Also, the Court seems to consider the consequences of the deprivation in this case negligible and attaches significant weight to the applicants’ own actions that led to this situation and that could have eased the effects of it on his private- and family life. The ECtHR also seems to question whether the applicant is truly stateless because no official documents were produced.727 The ECtHR concludes that there has been no violation of Article 8. In light of the existing international instruments dealing with the loss of nationality resulting in statelessness, this judgment should not have come as a surprise. According to both the 1961 Convention and the ECN – Malta has not ratified these treaties; only signed the ECN – nationality may be lost, even if a person would thereby become stateless, if that nationality was obtained fraudulently.728 In the absence of a right to a nationality in the ECHR and with – according to the Court – limited impact on the private- and family life of the applicant, the ECtHR was not willing to go beyond its current interpretations of Article 8 of the Convention. In terms of the contribution of this judgment to the discourse under the ECHR relating to nationality and the issue of statelessness, it therefore seems that this decision does not help to address it. However, a closer look at the case demonstrates that the Court reaffirmed its statement from the Karassev case729 and examined the merits of the case, i.e. it considered the arbitrariness 724 725 726 727 728 729 Ibid, para 56. Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, ‘Ramadan v. Malta: When Will the Strasbourg Court Understand that Nationality is a Core Human Rights Issue?’ (Strasbourg Observers, 22 July 2016) <https:// strasbourgobservers.com/2016/07/22/ramadan-v-malta-when-will-the-strasbourg-court-understandthat-nationality-is-a-core-human-rights-issue/> accessed 4 July 2021. Ramadan v Malta App No 76136/12 (ECHR, 21 June 2016) ECLI:CE:ECHR:2016:0621JUD007613612, para 85. Ibid, paras 90, 92. Art 7 ECN; Art 8 1961 Convention. Ramadan v Malta App No 76136/12 (ECHR, 21 June 2016) ECLI:CE:ECHR:2016:0621JUD007613612, para 84. Intersentia 137