Tag: cancellation of British citizenship

Shamima Begum case shows how little power courts have to check government national security decisions

Posted on by foluke.adebisi

by Professor Devyani Prabhat, University of Bristol Law School

The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), a court that specialises in national security cases, has upheld the home secretary’s decision to cancel Shamima Begum’s citizenship. The 23-year-old was deprived of her citizenship in 2019, four years after leaving the UK aged 15 to join Islamic State in Syria. The court found “credible suspicion” that Begum had been trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation, as her lawyers had argued. It also found that there were “arguable breaches of duty” by state authorities in having allowed her to make the journey to Syria. (more…)

A Paean to Judicial (Self) Restraint: The UK Supreme Court Shamima Begum Decision

Posted on by foluke.adebisi

by Devyani Prabhat, Professor, Law School, University of Bristol

The Supreme Court has refused permission for Shamima Begum, who left the UK as a 15-year-old British schoolgirl for Syria in 2015, to come back to the UK so that she can effectively challenge the removal of her citizenship (decision dated 26th February 2021; [2021] UKSC 7). Begum was found in a camp in Syria two years back. The Home Secretary removed her British citizenship soon thereafter, arguing that she has eligibility for Bangladeshi citizenship, and would not be left stateless without British citizenship. (more…)

Shamima Begum: legality of revoking British citizenship of Islamic State teenager hangs on her heritage

Posted on by lee.mcconnell

By Dr Devyani Prabhat, Reader in Law (University of Bristol Law School)

Sajiv Javid’s decision to revoke the citizenship of Shamima Begum, the 19-year-old from Bethnal Green who left to join Islamic State in 2015, has been met with mixed reaction. While some supported the home secretary’s decision, others have expressed concern about its implications.

In these debates, there is much confusion about what cancellation of citizenship entails: whether this is just the cancellation of Begum’s passport, whether she is becoming stateless or whether she could be sent to Bangladesh because she comes from a family of Bangladeshi heritage.

In reality, cancellation of British citizenship means people can be left in limbo in war zones because they lose the right to re-enter the UK and to receive any diplomatic protection.

Begum’s case, while high profile, is not unique, and in 2017, there was a large spike in cases and the citizenship of 104 people was revoked on grounds where it was deemed “conducive to the public good”. (more…)

Brexit and Notions of British Citizenship

Posted on by legalresearch

By Dr Devyani Prabhat, Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School).

DevIn a recent article, published in the inter-disciplinary journal Law, Culture, and Humanities, I have argued that a surge in number of cases of cancellation of British citizenship indicates a return to a loyalty-protection model of citizenship which was popular earlier during the two World Wars. Here, I will go further, and say that Brexit and the debates of exclusion of EEA nationals from the UK, are also influenced by the very same loyalty-protection view. The loyalty-protection view had become unfashionable in the aftermath of the Second World War but is now back in vogue. (more…)