2 AL-NASHIF v. BULGARIA JUDGMENT 4. The application was allocated to the Fourth Section of the Court (Rule 52 § 1 of the Rules of Court). Within that Section, the Chamber that would consider the case (Article 27 § 1 of the Convention) was constituted as provided in Rule 26 § 1 of the Rules of Court. 5. A hearing on admissibility and merits (Rule 54 § 4) took place in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 25 January 2001. There appeared before the Court: (a) for the Government Mrs G. SAMARAS, Ministry of Justice, (b) for the applicants Mr Y. GROZEV, Lawyer, Mrs K. YANEVA, Lawyer, Agent, Counsel, Counsel. The Court heard addresses by them. 6. By a decision of 25 January 2001 the Court declared the remainder of the application partly admissible and partly inadmissible. The applicant and the Government each filed observations on the merits (Rule 59 § 1). The parties replied in writing to each other's observations. 7. On 1 November 2001 the Court changed the composition of its Sections (Rule 25 § 1), but this case remained with the Chamber constituted within former Section IV. 8. Subsequently, Mr I. Cabral Barreto, substitute judge, replaced Mr A. Pastor Ridruejo who was unable to take part in the further consideration of the case. THE FACTS I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE 9. The first applicant, Mr Daruish Auni Al-Nashif, a stateless person of Palestinian origin, was born in 1967 in Kuwait. He resided in Bulgaria between September 1992 and July 1999, when he was deported. He now lives in Syria. The second and third applicants, Abrar and Auni Al-Nashif, are the first applicant's children. They were born in Bulgaria in 1993 and 1994 respectively. They are of Bulgarian nationality and lived in the town of Smolyan, Bulgaria, with their mother, Mrs Hetam Ahmed Rashid Saleh,