Author
Registration of child birth
Pursuant to the Act on Civil Registration Procedure,[1] within one day from the birth of a child, parents have the obligation to register their birth at the competent Registry Office, which issues the birth certificate. None of the organisations interviewed reported systemic problems as to birth registration.
Main challenges concern the establishment and registration of a new-born child’s citizenship. Hence, those children whose parents are beneficiaries of international protection are registered as unknown citizens given that Hungary does not have the competency to establish the nationality of another country. Since parents cannot contact the embassy of their country of origin in order to register their child, the new-born remains without an established citizenship.
The aforementioned practice is based on the current Hungarian legislation, according to which children of persons with international protection do not receive Hungarian citizenship ex lege at birth. This is a clear violation of Article 1(2)(a)-(b) of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and Article 6(2)(b) of the 1997 European Convention on Nationality. Furthermore, it is in breach of Articles 3 and 7 of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.[2] According to the Menedék Association, the struggle of obtaining citizenship for the child leads to frustration and anxiety for parents with international protection. The problem still existed in 2023.
Menedék Association reported another issue with regard to birth registration in 2023: birth registration is difficult when the father and mother are not married and the father is not in Hungary or is already deceased at the time of birth. This causes problems if the mother wants the child to bear the father’s surname.
Registration of marriage
As regards marriage in general, the same rules apply to beneficiaries of international protection as to Hungarian nationals. There is only one additional requirement that refugees and persons with subsidiary protection have to fulfil. As it is set out in the Act on Civil Registration Procedure, non-Hungarian citizens have to prove that no obstacle to the marriage exists pursuant to their personal law.[3] The term ‘personal law’ is defined in the Act on International Private Law,[4] meaning the law of any State of which the person is a national. Consequently, in practice beneficiaries of international protection would have the obligation to contact their embassy (in order to obtain their approval and eventually, the birth certificate). This might be dangerous for the person, and in any case is prohibited by the Asylum Act, or the person loses their international protection status. Therefore, in such cases, the Act on Civil Registration Procedure enables the applicants to ask for an exemption from the Registry Office[5] and provides ex lege exemption in cases where the country of origin is knowingly unable to issue the required certificate.[6]
As per the experiences of the Menedék Association, requests for exemption are mostly accepted by the Registry Office, nonetheless they are aware of a case when during the asylum procedure the applicant claimed to be married but lost his wife soon afterwards. As a result of the lack of proper Somalian state registration and since the refugee was not able to contact the embassy due to his fear of persecution, there was no way to prove the death of his wife with documents and to certify the change in his marital status. In general, registration of marriage is a long procedure in which couples usually need the help of the Menedék Association to write an application for exemption from the abovementioned rules. As a positive development in 2020 and 2021, the Menedék Association noted that in certain districts of Budapest the officers are more welcoming towards people with international protection background and speak English. In the countryside, due the lack of experience of case officers, beneficiaries of international protection are often requested to provide original documents from their country of origin. Menedék Association did not report of any change in 2023.
Under the law, the state must provide an interpreter upon submitting the request to get married and during the ceremony in case the parties do not speak Hungarian. In contrast to that, as noted by Menedék Association in 2023 and previous years, in practice the parties are asked to bring an interpreter, who cannot be a relative of the persons concerned, but a non-professional is also accepted. [7]
[1] Act I of 2010 on Civil Registration Procedure.
[2] ‘Until 2002, the relevant Law-Decree did not contain any specific guidance for cases where the new-born child’s nationality was not proven (e.g. neither of the parents was a Hungarian citizen, etc.). Based on anecdotal information and data gathered from individual cases known to the author, it appears that the practice was to register children automatically as having the same nationality as their parents.’ see Gábor Gyulai, Nationality unknown? An overview of the safeguards and gaps related to the prevention of statelessness at birth in Hungary, January 2014, available at: http://bit.ly/2oeIgUC.
[3] Section 23(1) Act I of 2010 on Civil Registration Procedure.
[4] As of 1 January 2018, Section 15 of Act XXVIII of 2017 on International private law.
[5] Section 23(1) Act on Civil Registration Procedure.
[6] Section 23(2) Act on Civil Registration Procedure.
[7] Information received from the Menedék Association by the HHC on 22 February 2024.