2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(1) Perhaps the most important of the African Court’s contributions to international law in this field was its ruling on the burden of proof. In the vast majority of cases in Africa where citizenship of an individual has been contested, the government does not invoke formal deprivation procedures under the relevant law, but rather asserts that the person acquired nationality illegitimately. 60 The advantage of this way of proceeding, from the government’s perspective, is that fewer due process protections usually apply. The African Court outlaws this approach to circumventing the individual’s rights by its holding that, if a person already holds official documents attesting citizenship, the state must prove (to the satisfaction of an independent tribunal) that he or she is not a citizen. 61 In this regard, the African Court anticipated the June 2018 decision by the European Court of Human Rights in Alpeyeva and Dzhalagoniva v Russia. 62 Though the facts appeared quite different — relating to access to Russian citizenship for ethnic Russian residents in other former Soviet Union states — one common feature was the question of whether denial that someone is entitled to nationality counts as deprivation of nationality. In Alpeyeva and Dzhalagoniva v Russia, the European Court held that principles it had developed in previous cases on the right to private life apply equally to a state’s assertion that a person has never acquired citizenship as they do to formal deprivation. 63 The African Court ordered Tanzania to amend its legislation — both the Immigration Act 1995 and the Tanzania Citizenship Act 1995 — to allow for court review of administrative decisions. 64 While Tanzania’s legislation is currently an outlier in Africa in completely excluding court review, the provisions reflect an ongoing tendency in former British territories in Africa (and Britain itself) to provide very wide discretion to the executive in relation to citizenship. 65 The African Court’s ruling opens potential avenues for further argument in both regional and national courts, and in parliaments, for this discretion to be restricted. Whether Tanzania itself will obey the Court’s instructions is, however, doubtful during the administration of President John Magufuli, a head of state impatient of procedural requirements and court rulings. 66 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 See Manby, Citizenship in Africa (n 2). Anudo case (n 1) 18 [80]. Alpeyeva and Dzhalagoniva v Russia (European Court of Human Rights, Application Nos 7549/09 and 33330/11, 12 June 2018). ibid. For commentary, see Katja Swider, ‘ECHR Alpeyeva and Dzhalagoniya v Russia: Mass Confiscation of Passports Violates Article 8’ (GLOBALCIT, 16 July 2018) <http://globalcit.eu/echr-alpeyeva-and-dzhalagoniya-v-russia-mass-confiscation-ofpassports-violates-article-8/>. Anudo case (n 1) 28–29 [132]. See Manby, Citizenship in Africa (n 2) 126–46. See, eg, ‘Tanzania: Everyone is Scared’ (African Arguments, 2 March 2018) <https://africanarguments.org/2018/03/02/tanzania-everyone-is-scared/>. 176