Levy, Nazla v Abdel Razak and Others

• Jurisdiction: Egipto
• Date: 31 March 1937
• Court: Mixed Tribunal (Egypt)
• Docket Number: 28

Egypt, Summary Tribunal of Cairo.

Case No. 28

Nazla Levy

and

Abdel Razak and Others.

Protectorates — Tunisians — Nationality of — Retention of Tunisian Nationality notwithstanding French Protection — Marriage by Foreigner to Tunisian — Effect on Nationality of Origin.

The Facts.—The plaintiff, in order to prove her foreign nationality, pleaded that she was French by reason of her marriage to a Tunisian protected subject of France. In reply, the defendants filed a certificate issued by the French Consulate at Cairo by which it appeared that the plaintiff had been divorced, and was no longer on the register of the French Consulate. To this the plaintiff made the answer, in the alternative, that she was an Italian subject; she filed a certificate from the Italian Consulate dated March 17, 1937, declaring that before her marriage she had been Italian. It appeared, however, that she had not followed the procedure prescribed by Italian law in order to resume her Italian nationality upon her divorce. The defendants therefore contended that she was Egyptian and that the Mixed Tribunals had no jurisdiction.

Held: that the Tribunal was competent. The plantiff was not a French national. She must be regarded as an Italian national. The Court said: “Tunisians, in so far as they are subjects of a State over which France has established her protection, are in the language of public international law, and as regards international relations, French protected persons (protégés), and not French subjects. Accordingly the subjects of Tunis, a protected State, retain the nationality of their State. There is a Tunisian...