Law or policy reform enabling automatic acquisition of nationality case, Khan v. Bangladesh (2003)13 (2003 Khan case), ten Urdu-speakers petitioned the Bangladesh Supreme Court, High Court Division (High Court) to direct the Election Commission of Bangladesh to register them as voters. The petitioners claimed that not only had they been denied the right to register to vote in forthcoming elections despite being citizens, two Government authorities named as respondents in their case had informed them verbally that Urdu-speaking Geneva Camp residents were categorically not entitled to vote in Bangladesh. In a decision handed down on 5 May 2003, the High Court ruled that the petitioners were Bangladeshi citizens as a matter of law, were entitled to be registered as Bangladeshi voters, and ordered the Election Commission to enroll them as such. While the 2003 Khan case was an important milestone, it failed to transform Government policy on a systemic basis for all Urdu-speakers. The High Court’s decision was limited to determining the citizenship status and right to register as voters of the ten petitioners who participated in the case. This decision joined a series of prior legal decisions that upheld the Urdu-speakers’ right to Bangladeshi citizenship as a matter of law but had not been implemented with respect to the whole population.14 As Bangladesh began to prepare for elections in 2007, the Election Commission registered some Urdu-speakers who had integrated into Bangladeshi society to vote as Bangladeshi nationals, but continued to systematically avoid approaching Urduspeakers living in the long-established camps and settlements, thereby perpetuating the Government’s policy of not considering these Urdu-speakers as Bangladeshi nationals. In 2007, political tensions resulted in the declaration of a state of emergency and the creation of a caretaker Government, which pledged to ensure meaningful elections. 13 14 Abid Khan and others v. Government of Bangladesh and others, Writ Petition No. 3831 of 2001, Bangladesh: Supreme Court, 5 March 2003, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4a54bbcf0.html The Supreme Court in Khan v. Bangladesh (2003), for example, cited the case of Mukhtar Ahmed v. Bangladesh from 1977, which considered the Bangladeshi nationality status of an Urdu-speaker who had applied to relocate to Pakistan in the immediate aftermath of the creation of independent Bangladesh. In that case, the Court ruled that simply registering for relocation neither conferred Pakistani citizenship on an individual, nor extinguished the petitioner’s acquisition of Bangladeshi nationality. The case of Abdul Khlaeque v. the Court of Settlement (1992) upheld this ruling, while in another, Bangladesh v. Professor Golam Azam (1994), the Bangladeshi Appellate Court ruled that even an Urdu-speaker who was politically active as pro-Pakistan fell within Bangladesh’s laws and was to be considered as a Bangladeshi national. The Bangladeshi Government consistently refused to translate these court decisions into a systemic policy recognizing the Bangladeshi nationality of the Urdu-speaking community. U N H C R > G P P A C T I O N 1 : R E S O LV I N G E X I S T I N G M A J O R S I T U AT I O N S O F S TAT E L E S S N E S S 17