74 | Report on the Situation of Human Rights in the Dominican Republic long a person in an irregular migratory situation may have lived in Dominican territory. Consequently, the children of parents in an irregular migratory situation were not entitled to Dominican nationality by the principle of jus soli as their parents would be “in transit” in the country, even if they had lived in the Dominican Republic for years or even decades. Regarding the judgment in question, the Supreme Court resolved that: [w]hen, in its Article 11(1), the [1944] Constitution precludes Dominican nationality based on the principle of jus soli in the case of the legitimate children of foreign persons residing in the country as diplomatic representatives or in transit therein, this presupposes that the latter –i.e. individuals in transit- have somehow been authorized to enter and remain in the country for a specified period of time; if under this circumstance, which has obviously been legitimized, a foreigner gives birth on the national territory, her child, under the Constitution, is not born a Dominican citizen, then all the more reason why a child cannot be a Dominican citizen if born of a foreign mother whose immigration status in the country is irregular when she gives birth on Dominican soil, and hence her entry into and permanence in the Dominican Republic cannot be justified. 164 […] If, faced with some unique case, the Dominican Republic should feel obliged to grant Dominican nationality to a foreigner who is not legally within the country or to a person who was born within the national territory and would otherwise be left stateless, it would be in application of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, adopted by the United Nations on August 30, 1961 and the interested party would have to strictly comply with its terms; however this Convention is not applicable in this case, as the persons concerned are, by the principle of jus sanguine, entitled to the nationality of their own country, which precludes any eventuality that the aforementioned Convention foresees with respect to statelessness and, by extension, precludes the obligation on the Dominican State to grant its nationality to those citizens in the hypothesis set out in the Convention. Article 11 of the Haitian Constitution categorically states that '[a]ny person born in Haiti or in a foreign country of a Haitian father or Haitian mother, is Haitian’. 165 156. Following this reasoning, the Supreme Court decided that the Haitian Constitution should be applied before the Dominican Constitution; in this way, the Court reasoned, denying Dominican nationality in the case of the children of Haitians in an irregular migratory situation would not foster statelessness, since the Haitian Constitution provided for the principle of jus sanguini, i.e., that Haitian nationality conveyed from one generation to the next. 164 165 Dominican Republic, Supreme Court of Justice, serving as Constitutional Court, Judgment of December 14, 2005. Dominican Republic, Supreme Court of Justice, serving as Constitutional Court, Judgment of December 14, 2005. Organization of American States | OAS