With the help of Rights Georgia, a minor child of Egyptian refugees will receive a residence permit
20 July, 2023With the efforts of Rights Georgia lawyer Rusudan Mchedlishvili, the Tbilisi City Court ordered the Tbilisi Civil Registry Service of the Public Service Development Agency to issue a refugee residence permit for a two-year-old child.
The child was born in Tbilisi in 2021 after her parents came to Georgia due to persecution in Egypt. Based on the Law on International Protection, the family received refugee status in Georgia, however, the Public Service Development Agency refused to issue a refugee residence permit to the child born in Georgia, limiting the child's access to rights and social services guaranteed by the law.
The reason for the refusal to issue a residence permit to the child was the inability of the Georgian administrative body to determine two personal data of the minor - citizenship and surname - for objective reasons. In particular, in order to obtain a document confirming the child's citizenship, the parents had to apply to the Egyptian Embassy, although in such a case they would lose their refugee status. Therefore, the parents could not apply to the embassy. As for the surname, according to Egyptian norms, the field for the surname is not filled in at all in the identification documents, so neither the parents nor the child have an official record of the surname.
The child's parents applied to Rights Georgia for legal assistance a year ago.
Rights Georgia appealed the decision of the civil registry to the higher administrative body, however, the Public Service Development Agency of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia did not satisfy the appeal.
After the refusal of both administrative bodies, Rights Georgia filed a lawsuit in the Tbilisi City Court. As a result, by the decision of July 17, 2023, the lawsuit was satisfied and the Tbilisi Civil Registry Service of the Public Service Development Agency of Georgia was ordered to issue a refugee residence permit in the name of the minor child.
Rights Georgia provided free legal assistance to the beneficiaries under the UNHCR-funded project "Protecting and Empowering Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Humanitarian Status Holders, and Stateless Persons in Georgia".