Born in Sierra Leone, Ibrahim Suzo twice met representatives of his country while detained in Malta.
Twice they refused to take him back or recognise him as a national.
Mr Suzo was eventually released from detention but Malta is unable to deport him. He is left in legal limbo, a failed asylum seeker without a nationality. “Today, I don’t even know what to call home.”
Mr Suzo is one of a number of stateless people in Malta – with no established nationality and particularly vulnerable and prone to prolonged and repeated detention.
In the report ‘Protecting stateless persons from arbitrary detention in Malta’, the European Network on Statelessness and Aditus Foundation noted that the absence of procedures to identify and recognise statelessness may result in detention not in conformity with Malta’s human rights obligations.
Malta is among only four EU member states (Malta, Cyprus, Estonia and Poland) that are not party to either of the two UN statelessness conventions. Stateless people are unable to receive any form of legal and social protection since their status remains largely unidentified.
In July, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela told this newspaper that signing the UN conventions risked absorbing Malta’s human resources and choking the system with irregular migrants claiming statelessness. The government was analysing the provisions of the 1954 and 1961 UN conventions on stateless people before deciding whether Malta should sign.
The report is nonetheless optimistic. It suggests that Malta accede to the conventions and establish a dedicated statelessness determination procedure, building on the experience of the Office of the Refugee Commissioner. It asks for a shift from automatic detention towards a system based on individual assessment.
The report stresses that detention should be used as a last resort, after all less coercive remedies have been explored. Training sessions on statelessness should be organised for public authorities, while an internal assessment should be conducted on those scenarios where Maltese law or practice heightens the risk of statelessness.