UK government beaten by five-year-old in Supreme Court citizenship case

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that a child was wrongly denied British citizenship because her father successfully overturned the UK government's decision to strip him of his citizenship. This complex case involves a five-year-old girl whose father was in the midst of legal proceedings to regain his British citizenship when she was born in Bangladesh in 2019. The court's decision underscores the importance of upholding the rights of children in citizenship matters.

The man, known as E3 due to anonymity restrictions, is one of many British citizens of Bangladeshi descent whom the UK government has attempted to deprive of citizenship over the past decade, citing national security concerns. Some of these individuals had traveled to the Syrian civil war region, but E3's case was not understood to be related to Syria. In 2021, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled that they had been rendered stateless because the UK government had incorrectly assessed their entitlement to Bangladeshi citizenship. This ruling highlighted the potential for citizenship revocation to result in statelessness, a situation the UK aims to avoid.

The Home Office subsequently restored E3's citizenship but refused to recognize his daughter's right to citizenship, arguing that he was not a British citizen during the period he lost his citizenship from 2017 to 2021. E3 and another man, known as N3, then initiated judicial review proceedings, also filing a lawsuit on behalf of the child, ZA, to determine their citizenship status during that period. Their lawyers argued that since the revocation of their citizenship was unlawful, they were, in fact, British citizens at all times. The legal challenge focused on the continuous nature of citizenship rights.

In 2022, the High Court ruled in favor of the government, noting that ZA was "wholly innocent" but not entitled to British citizenship at the time of her birth. In 2023, the Court of Appeal upheld that judgment. But in a unanimous ruling on Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that E3 and N3 remained British citizens, citing the UK's obligation to comply with international law, which prohibits making a person stateless, and emphasizing the "fundamental right to citizenship." The judgment stated: "The consequence for ZA is that she is a British citizen by virtue of E3's status as a British citizen at the time of ZA's birth." This decision reaffirms the importance of adhering to international legal standards.

E3, responding to the ruling through his lawyers at Duncan Lewis Solicitors, described the outcome as "bittersweet." He said: "I have missed key years of my daughter’s childhood and still cannot understand why it required the intervention of the country’s highest judges to determine this simple point of common sense. The whole process has made me and my family feel like we are second-class citizens." Farhad Ansari, representing the man and his daughter, called on Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to apologize to the family. Ansari said: "It is appalling that the government fought so hard against the basic rights of a ‘wholly innocent’ child, who at just five years old has had to fight through the UK’s highest court to be recognized as British." The case highlights the emotional toll of citizenship disputes.

The UK government has used the controversial power to strip citizenship from dozens of British citizens who traveled to the Syrian civil war region, including some who remain in camps and prisons in northeastern Syria, suspected of links to the Islamic State (IS) group. International law prohibits a country from rendering a person stateless, but the UK government has argued that it targets individuals who hold dual nationality or are entitled to another nationality. However, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled in 2021 that British citizens entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship lose that entitlement if they do not apply before the age of 21, as was the case with E3 and N3, thus they had no claim to other citizenship. The government's policy aims to balance national security with international obligations.

These circumstances do not apply to Shamima Begum, a London-born woman who traveled to Islamic State-controlled territory in 2015 at the age of 15 and remains in a detention camp in northeastern Syria. In her appeal against the loss of her citizenship, she was found to remain entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship because she was deprived of British citizenship before the age of 21. Duncan Lewis Solicitors said in a statement that the case may have implications for the children of those who have been deprived of their citizenship and rendered stateless, currently held in detention camps in Syria and Iraq, or in refugee camps in Turkey and Lebanon. "The UK government has a duty to inform these children and their parents of the implications of this judgment and take urgent steps to repatriate them," the statement said. The Home Office has been asked to comment. The broader implications of the ruling are still unfolding.