Secretary of State for the Home Department (Appellant) v XX (Respondent) [2013] UKSC 62
- 2013
- United Kingdom
Topics
Membership in a terrorist organisationLegal bases
European Convention on Human Rights Universal Declaration of Human Rights United Kingdom: Home Office guidance on “Applications for leave to remain as a stateless person” 2013 United Kingdom: British Nationality Act 1981 UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons 1954 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness 1961Courts
The Supreme Court (UKSC), United KingdomLaws
Right to respect for private and family life Right to a nationalityFacts
Mr. XX (Respondent) is an Iraqi national. In 1992 he and his first wife came to the UK and sought asylum. In 1998 they and their four children were granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK and on 15 June 2000 they were granted British nationality. The effect of his acquisition of British nationality was that the respondent automatically lost his Iraqi nationality pursuant to article 11 of the Iraqi Nationality Law No 43 of 1963. In September 2004 the respondent travelled from the UK to Iraq. In October 2004 US forces in Iraq arrested him and transferred him into the custody of British forces. For more than three years, British forces detained him in Iraq, without charge, on grounds of his suspected membership of a terrorist group. Shortly prior to his release from internment, in a letter dated 12 December 2007, the Secretary of State notified the respondent that she had decided to make an order depriving him of British citizenship on the ground that she was satisfied that it would be conducive to the public good. The Secretary of State certified in the letter that the decision was taken wholly or partly in reliance on information which in her opinion should not be made public, the respondent had appealed and one of his grounds of appeal was that the order had made him stateless and was therefore void. The key issues in the case were (a) whether the respondent had regained Iraqi nationality prior to the date of the Secretary of State’s order, which had therefore not made him stateless and (b) if on 14 December 2007 the respondent had not been an Iraqi national and it had been open to him to regain it by application but he had failed to do so, then it had been his failure to make the application, rather than her order, which had made him stateless. The Court of Appeal rejected the Secretary of State’s contention that the respondent had regained Iraqi nationality automatically under article 10(1) of the Iraqi Law of Nationality 2006, which was in force on 14 December 2007 and, therefore, the order would not have made him stateless.
Legal grounds
Section 40 of the British Nationality Act 1981; Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Article 8 of the ECHR; Home Office guidance on “Applications for leave to remain as a stateless person (2013); UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (adopted on 28 September 1954); UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (adopted on 30 August 1961);
Findings
In judgement the Supreme Court cited the Home Office guidance on “Applications for leave to remain as a stateless person” dated 1 May 2013 which states: “If an individual is partway through a process for acquiring nationality [of another country] but those procedures have not been completed, he or she cannot be considered as a national [of that country]. Similarly, where requirements or procedures for loss, deprivation or renunciation of nationality have not been completed, the individual is still a [British] national for the purposes of the stateless person definition.