UK Special Immigration Appeals Commission sides with government in Begum appeal against deprivation of citizenship
Shamima Begum has lost the first stage of her appeal against the deprivation of her British citizenship.
In February 2015, when she was 15 years old, Shamima Begum left the UK and flew to Syria to join the Islamic State. Four years later, she turned up in a camp in Northern Syria nine months pregnant. She claimed she had married Dutch IS fighter Yago Riedijk and had given birth to two children, both of whom had died. In a media interview she said that she wanted to return to the UK but did not regret joining IS. Later that month, in February 2019, the then Home Secretary Sajid Javid issued an order depriving her of her British citizenship on the grounds that she posed a threat to national security.
Ms Begum’s lawyers lodged an appeal of this decision to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC). Ms Begum was not granted permission to enter the UK for the appeal and remains at the al-Roj camp in Syria, under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces.
At a recent hearing, SIAC sided with the government on three preliminary issues, though she can still proceed with her substantive appeal.
The first issue concerned whether the order stripping Ms Begum of her British citizenship made her a stateless person, something that is prohibited under international law. According to Article (1) of the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, statelessness arises when someone is “not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law.” Section 40(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981 allows the Secretary of State to deprive an individual of their citizenship if the Secretary has determined that that they pose a threat to national security. This is qualified by section 40(4) which prevents such an order being made if it would make a person stateless.
In ascertaining whether the Secretary’s order made Ms Begum stateless, the Commission had to consider whether she had the citizenship of another state at the time of the order. Ms Begum’s parents are Bangladeshi citizens. Her father came to the UK in 1975 and she was born in 1999. As her father had Indefinite Leave to Remain at the time of her birth, she was a British citizen. The government argued that as her parents were Bangladeshi citizens at the time of her birth, she was a citizen of Bangladesh by descent. Lawyers for Ms Begum argued that there was no evidence that she had ever visited Bangladesh or applied for citizenship. They further argued that, in practice, citizenship was a matter of discretion for the government and because of her terrorist affiliations, they would not grant it. Political pressure from the government on the Supreme Court means that they would likely side with the government on any decision in this matter.
The Commission ruled that the correct approach for them is to consider what view a Bangladeshi court would take if they applied the law correctly. It, therefore, decided that the Home Secretary’s order to deprive Ms Begum of her British citizenship did not make her stateless.
The second issue the Commission had to consider was whether the Home Secretary’s order exposed Ms Begum to risk of death or inhuman treatment. Her lawyer’s argued that if she were returned to Bangladesh she would be hanged. The Commission said that the government was only obliged to consider risks that were foreseeable and arose as a direct result of a decision. It went on to say that the claims that she would suffer ill treatment in Bangladesh were too speculative and that while conditions at the al- Roj camp were “wretched”, she was there as a result of her own choices and not because of the Home Secretary’s decision.
Finally, the Commission considered whether Ms Begum had been granted a meaningful and effective appeal. Her lawyers argued that as she was not allowed to return to the UK, they could not communicate properly or confidentially with her. The Commission accepted that she could not play a meaningful role in her appeal and, to that extent, it would not be fair and effective. It nonetheless asserted that there was no universal rule in the legislation that every deprivation appeal had to be effective in this sense. It said that if this was the case it could convert an appeal into an automatic way to overturn a decision and a terrorist might deliberately put themselves beyond reach.
Ms Begum’s solicitor, Daniel Furner, said that they would lodge an immediate appeal against SIAC’s decision.
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