procedure to determine statelessness and grant statelessness certificates to persons in need of them. Uzbekistan has set up Special Commissions to consider the registration and residency of stateless persons, CIS immigrants and other foreigners. Operating regionally and in Tashkent, they report to the Council of Ministers.209 A survey commissioned by UNHCR in 2002 on the legal stay of immigrants from Tajikistan who arrived in Uzbekistan from 1990 to 2002 indicated that 26,792 persons originating from Tajikistan had been issued with Certificates for Stateless Persons. In 2009, UNHCR received reports that an undetermined number of them had arrived in the Soghd region of Tajikistan. In most cases, each Central Asian State puts the burden of proving statelessness upon the individual concerned. ‘Proof’ is normally interpreted as documentary evidence, in the form of a certificate, or ‘spravka’, confirming that the person has renounced their previous citizenship, or otherwise does not possess it. It is difficult for many stateless persons to acquire the requisite proof. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan have consular representation throughout the region, but the other two States do not. Some States outside the region have no consular representation in Central Asia at all. The means of proving ‘statelessness’ are therefore not equally accessible to all. In practice, applicants told UNHCR that official answers often came late, or not at all. This was a particular problem for applicants needing a spravka from Uzbekistan, but not only applicants with links to that country. Stateless people interviewed for this report in each of the countries in the region reported lengthy waits to acquire a spravka from the country where they used to live. In extreme cases, the waiting time has been in excess of 10 years. Stateless persons often cannot afford to travel to the capital or pay a consular fee for a spravka.210 Not every State concerned has consular representation in the region, Moldova being one case in point. Stateless persons who are refugees cannot contact the government of the state they have fled. Exceptionally, some Central Asian States have shown flexibility in their statelessness determination procedures to address some of these problems. Passport authorities in Kyrgyzstan, for instance, have sometimes shared the burden of proving statelessness with applicants from CIS States whose passports have expired. In the Osh region, they have written to the authorities of the State concerned and have interpreted a lack of response as evidence that the applicants were not regarded as that State’s nationals. The Kyrgyz authorities proceeded to recognise such applicants as stateless on this basis.211 Regional Ombudspersons have also tried to resolve statelessness determination problems across borders in individual cases and succeeded in securing a ‘spravka’ from the relevant government to confirm the persons concerned were not citizens of the State. In 2007, the Ombud institutions of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan cooperated successfully in the cases of 21 stateless persons according to the Uzbek Ombudswoman’s Annual Report and an interview UNHCR held with the Kazakh Ombudsman.212 None of the five Central Asian States has provision to prevent the expulsion of someone living with invalid documents pending the determination of their statelessness status. The 2009 Administrative Code of Tajikistan prescribes the expulsion of foreigners living without documents or with invalid 209 Article 2, Annex 3, Presidential Decree UP 2240 ‘On Perfecting the Passport Regime in Uzbekistan’, February 1999. A spravka from Uzbekistan, for instance, costs the equivalent of 117 US Dollars according to people interviewed by UNHCR. 211 From UNHCR interviews with migration officials in Osh Region. This practice grants legal status to persons who otherwise may continue in limbo with undetermined nationality. On the other hand, unless it is based on a proper procedure and carried out by a centralised authority, it may cause a person to be found stateless before all reasonable efforts have been made to determine their nationality. In some cases this may mean that an opportunity to confirm possession of a nationality is lost. 212 In her 2007 Annual Report, the Ombudswoman of Uzbekistan notes 21 requests for assistance from the Ombudsman of Kazakhstan and two each from the ombudspersons of Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Report on the Activities of the Authorized Person of the OliyMajlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan for Human Rights (Ombudsman) in 2007, Tashkent, 2008, available athttp://ombudsman.uz/files/2007-eng.pdf. 210 ~ 33 ~