describe or examine the respective arguments when analyzing the alleged violation of the
right to movement and residence (infra paras. 384 to 389).
229. Having made these clarifications, the Court will now describe the arguments of the
Commission and of the parties, and then set out the considerations of the Court in this
regard.
B) Arguments of the Commission and of the parties
230. The Commission, referring to Willian Medina Ferreras and Rafaelito Pérez Charles, as
well as to the children at the time: Awilda Medina, Luis Ney Medina and Carolina Isabel
Medina, Miguel Jean, Victoria Jean and Natalie Jean, argued that, according to the
statements of the presumed victims and the documentation provided by the State, they
were Dominican nationals and possessed the pertinent documentation to prove this.
However, during their arbitrary detention and expulsion, they were not given the
opportunity to present this documentation or it was destroyed by Dominican officials, and
this resulted in the presumed victims being unable to prove their physical existence and
juridical personality. The Commission alleged that “these practices” placed the victims in a
situation of extreme risk, depriving them of the enjoyment and exercise of their rights,
and signified de facto that the victims were arbitrarily deprived of the recognition and
enjoyment of their nationality.
231. The Commission argued that, according to the evidence provided, Dominican officials
“refused” to register Victor Jean as a citizen of the Dominican Republic, which resulted in
his “exclusion from the State’s legal and institutional order, refusing to recognize his very
existence as a subject […] of law.”
232. The Commission also “recall[ed] the Court’s finding” that “a person’s migratory
status is not transmitted to his children,” 276 and added that, in any case, the exception to
ius soli currently included in Dominican law, consisting in the “legal status of the parents,”
is not applicable to any of the presumed victims born in Dominican territory, because this
exception was introduced in 2004 and constitutionalized in 2010. The Commission
considered that, despite the fact that the State observes the principle of ius soli, the
impediments that exist to granting nationality to persons born in the Dominican Republic
constitute an arbitrary deprivation of nationality which contributes to the detention and
possible deportation of Dominican nationals.
233. Consequently, it inferred that “based on the established context, and the laws and
practices of the Dominican State at the time of the events, Haitian migrants had to
contend with a number of obstacles that prevented them from legalizing their status in the
country and registering their children born in Dominican territory.” In addition, it noted
that the State’s laws and practices that led to the deprivation of nationality owing to the
failure to register Dominicans of Haitian descent constituted a generalized practice
specifically aimed at persons of Haitian descent and those with the darkest skin color. It
considered that, although it was true that Dominican laws do not expressly establish
provisions that prejudice Haitians and those of Haitian descent, “it is no less true that their
interpretation and application reveal their discriminatory impact on this population.”
234. “[T]he Commission […] consider[ed] that the obstacles that exist in the Dominican
Republic to registering children of Haitian descent had been proved” and recalled the
Court’s observation in paragraph 109 of its judgment in the Case of the Yean and Bosico
276
The Commission referred to the judgment of the Court in the case of the Yean and Bosico Girls v.
Dominican Republic, also indicating other aspects of that decision included in its paragraph 157.
77
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