M.N. was born on June 8, 1988, in Sisak from his father, who did not have Croatian citizenship at the time of his birth, but acquired it later in 1994, and besides, his father did not immediately recognize him, so only the mother’s information, who was a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was entered in the client’s birth register. The client has lived in the Republic of Croatia since birth, but until the age of 24 he had no status in the Republic of Croatia. What was more, he was not even registered in the citizens registries of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and he did not even know that. M.N. is a member of the Roma national minority.
The client contacted our office for the first time in 2012, when he regulated the first temporary residence, and since then the relentless struggle to create the conditions for admission to Croatian citizenship has begun.
M.N. lived with his father and mother in Sisak, very modestly, very poor, and approached our office to cover the costs of his temporary stay. Since the extension of the next temporary stay depended on obtaining a BiH travel document, the client asked for our help because he was not in a financial position, nor did he know how to do it.
We, through the competent bodies of BiH, managed to carry out the procedure of subsequent registration in the books of citizens of BiH, and as part of that procedure, the procedure of determining the unique personal number of a citizen (JMBG) was also carried out, which took approximately two years, all with the aim of submitting an application for issuing a BiH travel document. Application for issuing a travel document M.N. submitted in 2/2014, but since he did not have an identification document, he did the same on the basis of an identity statement with two witnesses. He received his BiH travel document in 5/2014.
M.N. in July 2016 submitted a request for regularization of permanent residence and was granted the same that year. During the entire duration of the temporary stay, the client accumulated a debt in the name of health insurance contributions, and the same debt in 11/2019 amounted to about HRK 30,000.00. We helped the client submit a request for debt write-off, based on the provisions of Art. 148. para. 4 of the General Tax Code, according to which provisions the same debt is written off due to non-payment to debtors who are in a difficult financial and life situation. On June 2, 2020, a decision was issued by the Ministry of Finance, the Tax Administration on the write-off of the debt in the name of health insurance contributions. Since the entire debt was not written off through the first application, and it was an obstacle to submitting an application for Croatian citizenship, we submitted a second application on April 6, 2022. Based on the same, a part of the debt was also written off, and one part of the debt remained in the amount of HRK 3,913.71, which the client settled with the help of relatives in 9/2022.
Then we started collecting documentation from Bosnia and Herzegovina to submit an application for Croatian citizenship. After obtaining the documentation, we filled out the application, wrote a resume and in October 2022, M.N. has submitted a request for Croatian citizenship. On May 24, 2023, he was issued a guarantee for two years. Then M.N. in 11/2023 submitted a request for release from BiH citizenship, for which we previously had to re-obtain new documentation from BiH (new birth certificate, certificate of citizenship), and M.N. in 5/2024 submitted the decision on dismissal from BiH citizenship to the Ministry of Interior (MoI) of the Republic of Croatia.
Since his request for Croatian citizenship was not resolved, we wrote a series of rush notes to the MoI, and one of our rush notes was answered by the MoI in 9/2024 answering that the verification is still pending as to whether the client has debts based on public benefits. However, after that the procedure continued, even though M.N. had all the prerequisites and completed all the necessary actions related to admission to Croatian citizenship. At the beginning of 10/2024 the client received a notification from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Police Department Sisak-Moslavina that he was granted Croatian citizenship by decision.
So, since 2012, when he was 24 years old, stateless, the client has been fighting the battle to regulate his status in the Republic of Croatia, and only after 12 years he got Croatian citizenship. The client as a young man, who was born in Sisak and lived in Sisak all the time since birth, found himself in a situation where he could not move freely, get a job, use health care, exercise his social and other rights. What’s more, the client is poorly literate because he didn’t attend school and didn’t even know his way around all these legal tangles around obtaining documents, as well as all the necessary procedures in order to get on the path to legal status in the Republic of Croatia, which will give him the basis for admission to Croatia citizenship.
The epilogue of this story has a happy ending, because the client was given the opportunity to go to the Netherlands, where he found a life companion and partner, and also the possibility of employment and securing his existence.
The case of the client M.N. confirms the complexity of the status of stateless persons, because M.N. was firstly without citizenship of any country. Without the provided legal and financial assistance to M.N. it would be very difficult to get the necessary documents from BiH, to solve the subsequent registration in the citizens books of BiH, to regulate the status in the Republic of Croatia, to write off the debt for health insurance, and thus to receive Croatian citizenship.
Although this story has a positive outcome as far as the regulation of citizenship is concerned, with the same story we point out the fact that the client spent more than ten years on the regulation of status in Croatia, during which years he could not study, work or exercise any rights in the Republic of Croatia, which is very bad for a young man. With this story, we point out the complexity of such procedures, however, giving hope that with the support of legal aid, a happy ending can be reached.
In Sisak, 16 October 2024
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