UK illegally stripped a woman of her citizenship without telling her court | home office

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The Court of Appeal ruled that the British government acted unlawfully by stripping a British woman of her citizenship without telling her.

By a majority of two to one, the judges upheld a High Court ruling that the failure to inform the woman, known as D4, that her citizenship had been withdrawn until the government be contacted by his lawyers nullified the decision.

The interior minister had argued that the notification had been given to D4, who has been detained in Syria’s Roj camp since January 2019, simply by placing a note in her interior ministry file, saying relying on regulations introduced without parliamentary approval.

However, the Court of Appeal said the UK Nationality Act 1981 required someone to be given written notice of a decision to strip them of their citizenship and only parliament could decide to change this requirement.

Lady Justice Whipple said: The 1981 Act does not confer powers of such magnitude that the Home Secretary can consider notice to have been given where no steps have been taken to give the notice to the person concerned and that the order has simply been placed on the Home Office’s persons file. To allow this would be to allow the law to be overturned by secondary legislation.

The appeals court’s decision, published on Wednesday, comes as the government attempts, through section 9 of the Nationality and Borders Bill, to remove the requirement to give notice in a wide range of cases. range of circumstances, including retrospectively. The clause drew strong criticism and protests in parliament.

Whipple said the purpose of the requirement to give notice in the 1981 Act was that the person should know that a decision had been made; the person has the right to know the reasons for this decision; and the person is advised of their appeal rights.

Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, said: Today’s decision confirms that it is illegal to deprive a British national of their citizenship in secret. But the government is already cynically trying to circumvent the courts by using Article 9 of the Nationality and Borders Bill to render this decision moot, mocking the rule of law. Ministers should change course and recognize that depriving people of their citizenship without even telling them is an affront to British principles of justice and fairness.

D4 was born in the UK in 1967 and had British citizenship from birth. She also has Pakistani nationality. The decision to strip him of UK citizenship was taken on December 27, 2019. However, his lawyers were not made aware of the decision until they wrote to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in September 2020 asking help to repatriate her.

In a dissenting opinion, Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls, said: There is, in my view, no substantive difference between a regulation which permits valid service of a notice by sending it to an address at which we know that the person did not receive it and serve it on file.

The Home Office said it intended to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

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