Hence, to reveal the insufficiency of the State’s arguments, it is enough to weigh them against certain well-known public information, such as that, at the date of birth of the presumed victims who were children on March 25, 1999, the 1987 Haitian Constitution was in force. In its article 11, this Constitution established that any individual born of a Haitian father or mother who had been born Haitian and had never renounced that nationality could acquire nationality by birth. However, articles 7 and 8 of the Decree-Law on nationality of November 6, 1984, established that children born abroad of a Haitian mother and a foreign father, as in the case of these presumed victims, could not acquire Haitian nationality until they came of age, at which time, they could choose between the foreign nationality and the Haitian nationality, provided that they were going to settle, or were already settled in Haiti. Regarding Victor Jean, the Haitian Constitution in force at the time of his birth, in 1958, was the 1957 Constitution, which, in its article 4(a) established that any child of a Haitian father may acquire nationality by birth. 345 In this regard, it should be clarified that this does not mean that the Court, in the context of this case, is examining the laws of Haiti; it is merely demonstrating, based on certain public information, that the State’s argument that the presumed victims could acquire Haitian nationality would have required greater substantiation to support it. Thus, the information presented by the State in this regard does not allow the Court to be certain whether the State has taken measures to verify that the presumed victims in question could really obtain Haitian nationality. 298. The foregoing reveals that the presumed victims never obtained documentation proving their nationality. In this regard, the State’s assertion that the presumed victims are not Dominicans relates to the interpretation of constitutional provisions in force prior to January 26, 2010, based on judicial decisions issued in 2005 and 2013 (supra paras. 283 to 288), following the birth of the individuals in question and, in general, the facts of this case. Thus, the said understanding of the applicable legal regime would mean, in practical terms, a retroactive application of norms, affecting legal certainty concerning the enjoyment of the right to nationality. In addition, in the circumstances of the case, this would entail the risk of statelessness for the presumed victims, because the State has not proved sufficiently that these persons would obtain another nationality. Consequently, the State has not proved sufficiently that there are valid legal arguments to justify that the State’s omission to provide documentation to the said persons did not result in the deprivation of their access to nationality. Hence, the State’s denial of the right of the presumed victims to Dominican nationality resulted in an arbitrary violation of that right. 299. Thus, it must be established that, as indicated previously, that the denial of nationality to the presumed victims gave rise also to a violation of the right to recognition of juridical personality and, similarly, the failure to obtain personal identification documentations led to a violation of the right to a name. Moreover, the close relationship between these three rights that were violated and the right to identity that, in UN Doc. HCR/GS/12/01, 20 February 2012”. In addition, referring in general to “international law” and not to a specific international norm, the expert witness indicated that “[l]aws that make a distinction between groups of persons based on an unalterable characteristic, particularly when that characteristic is related to ethnic or national origin, cannot be tolerated in international law. The provisions that restrict access to nationality merely on the basis of the migratory situation of a person or their parents, [… i]n addition to constituting discrimination […] risk leaving children without access to any nationality, making them stateless” (opinion of Julia Harrington provided by affidavit). 345 Despite the general indication, with which the parties agree, that the presumed victims are of Haitian descent, the information with regard to Victor Jean’s filiation has not been authenticated, so that it has not been proved whether his parents were both Haitians, or whether only his mother or only his father were. This gives rise to uncertainty about whether Victor Jean’s situation is adapted to the hypothesis established in the said Haitian constitutional text. 97