Report on Citizenship Law: Uganda amended 2005) and the 1999 UCICA (as amended 2009). Unfortunately, these legal instruments fall short of granting tangible pathways for refugee communities to access citizenship in Uganda, and subsequently face significant legal challenges in the naturalisation process.72 When assessing the possibility of refugees becoming citizens through registration based on ten years’ residence in the country,73 Article 12(2) of the Constitution and Article 14(2) of the UCICA directly exclude refugees. Article 12(2)(b) of the Constitution requires registration for citizenship to be on the bases of a person having “legally and voluntarily migrated” to Uganda, a status which excludes refugees by definition given their forced displacement into Uganda. Article 14(1)(a)(ii of the UCICA, providing for registration of those born in Uganda and residence since 1962, provides that citizenship through registration is only available in the case “neither of his or her parents and none of his or her grandparents was a refugee in Uganda”.74 Article 13 of the Constitution also provides that “Parliament shall by law provide for the acquisition and loss of citizenship by naturalisation”. UCICA Article 16 specifies the conditions which must be satisfied to naturalise. This includes a twenty-year residence period, knowledge of a prescribed vernacular language or English, being of good character and the intention to permanently reside in Uganda.75 There is no specific exclusion based on ‘legal and voluntary’ migration. The desire for refugees to fully integrate into Ugandan society through citizenship, and especially those who have no intention of returning to origin country and are long-term refugees, continues to be a challenge in the Ugandan citizenship context. This lack of clarity in legal interpretation prompted the Refugee Law Project, a non-profit organization providing legal aid to refugees and asylum seekers throughout the Great Lakes Region, to seek clarification on refugees’ rights to citizenship with respect to the 1995 Constitution and UCICA.76 A petition was filed calling upon to Uganda Constitutional Court (UCC) to provide clarification on whether refugees are eligible for citizenship either by registration, naturalisation, or both. In October 2015, the UCC issued a ruling which deemed that refugees are indeed eligible for citizenship through naturalisation but cannot access citizenship through registration because they did not “voluntarily migrate” to Uganda.77 Despite this ruling, however, the prospects of extending citizenship to refugees remain sensitive as to date and there have been no successful cases of naturalisation. The complexities which challenge the systematic registration of refugees was explained by Uganda’s former Commissioner for Refugees, who referred to the steps taken by the Office of Prime Minister (OPM), Department for Refugees to support certain refugees in acquiring Uganda citizenship. He stated: 72 Tigranna Zakaryan, Lina Antara, Political Participation of Refugees: The Case of South Sudanese and Congolese Refugees in Uganda. International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, April 2018. https://www.idea.int/sites/default/files/publications/political-participation-of-refugees-the-case-of-southsudanese-and-congolese-refugees-in-uganda.pdf (accessed 08 December 2018). 73 Between 1999 and 2009 the period specified by UCICA – as authorised by the Constitution -- was twenty years. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. 76 Constitutional Petition No. 34 of 2010 between Centre of Public Interest Law Ltd. Salima Namusobya [Petitioners] and The Attorney General [Respondent], 06 October 2015. https://refugeelawproject.org/files/others/constitutional_court_ruling_on_refugees_eligibility_to_become_Ugan dans.pdf (accessed 23 January 2018). 77 Ibid. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/8 - © 2020 Author 17