United Kingdom: Supreme Court clarifies circumstances in which deprivation of citizenship will render a person stateless

Secretary of State for the Home Department v Al-Jedda [2013] UKSC 62 (9 October 2013)concerns section 40(4) of the British Nationality Act 1981, under which the Secretary of State cannot deprive a person of British citizenship on the ground that it is conducive to public good if satisfied that it would make that person stateless. Mr Al-Jedda, originally an Iraqi national, lost his Iraqi citizenship when he acquired British citizenship in 2000. In 2004, he returned to Iraq and was detained by British forces for three years on suspicions of terrorism. In 2007, shortly before his release from internment, the Secretary of State deprived Mr Al-Jedda of British citizenship. Alongside a separate challenge to his internment, which culminated in the ECtHR Grand Chamber finding a violation of Article 5(1), in 2008 Mr Al-Jedda appealed the deprivation of citizenship order, on the ground it would make him stateless. After two adverse decisions against him in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), the Court of Appeal found in favour of Mr Al-Jedda in early 2013.

Appealing to the Supreme Court, the Secretary of State contended that, at the time the deprivation order was made, it had been open to Mr Al-Jedda to regain Iraqi citizenship by application. It was therefore his failure to make the application, rather than the deprivation order, which had made him stateless. The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal. From a plain reading of the statute and surrounding guidance, the Court ruled that the question of statelessness under section 40(4) is simply whether the person holds another nationality at the date of the order depriving him of his British citizenship.

Read the Supreme Court's judgment and press summary.

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