Steve Still
A note from Chronicle Law
We are are grateful to Duncan Lewis Solicitors for sharing this news article with us regarding a case that one of their Consultant Solicitors, Fahad Ansari, from the Immigration and Public Law team at the City of London office of Duncan Lewis, instructed upon.
The Case
In late February the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Home Secretary acted unlawfully in refusing to recognise the daughter of a man wrongfully deprived of his UK citizenship, to be British.
The girl ZA was born during the period when her father ‘E3’ had been left stateless by the Home Secretary, a decision that was later overturned on appeal. As such, the Home Secretary argued that ‘ZA’ had been unable to inherit citizenship from her father, as he was not a British citizen at the time of her birth, and only became so after she reinstated his citizenship following the appeal proceedings.
The Supreme Court overruled the earlier decisions of the Court of Appeal and the High Court, finding that when SIAC allows an appeal on grounds of statelessness (as it did in E3’s case), the deprivation order should be treated as having no effect from the outset. There is no need to wait for the Home Secretary to take administrative steps such as withdrawing the deprivation order or reinstating citizenship.
In other words, the individual is treated as always having retained their British citizenship. To hold otherwise would be contrary to the UK’s obligations under the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
It is hoped that the Court’s decision will create avenues for children in analogous or worse positions in detention camps in Syria and Iraq and refugee camps in Turkey and Lebanon to be repatriated to the UK. The British government has a duty of care to inform these children and their parents of the impact of this judgment and to take urgent steps to repatriate them.
E3, father of ZA said:
“While I welcome the court’s decision, it is bittersweet. I have lost out on the critical years of my daughter’s childhood and am still unable to fathom how it took the intervention of the most senior judges in the country to determine what was a matter of simple common sense. The entire process has left my family and I feeling like we are second-class citizens. I am very grateful to my legal team who have been fighting for my rights since 2017.”
Fahad Ansari, solicitor for the appellant, said:
“I am incredibly pleased for my client who can finally be reunited with her father after many years of forcible separation due to the stubbornness of the Home Secretary. It is astonishing that the government put up such a rigorous struggle over the fundamental rights of an ‘entirely blameless’ child who, at the tender age of 5, has had to battle through the highest courts in England to be recognised as British. I hope that the Home Secretary can be humble enough to finally admit her error of judgement in resisting this challenge and issue a long overdue apology to this young girl and her family.”
Solicitor Fahad Ansari instructing Hugh Southey KC at Matrix and Alasdair Mackenzie at Doughty Street Chambers represents the Appellant.
About Fahad Ansari:
Fahad Ansari is a Consultant in Immigration and Public Law at Duncan Lewis Solicitors, specialising in asylum, human rights, deportation, deprivation of citizenship, and national security cases. He has successfully challenged Home Office decisions on unlawful detention, removals, and entry refusals, securing damages and injunctions for vulnerable clients.
For advice in relation to any public law or immigration matter contact Fahad via email at Fahada@Duncanlewis.com
Judgment: Read the full judgments:
N3 (Appellant) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent)
ZA (Appellant) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent)
Anonymity: The Court has ordered that no one shall publish or reveal the names or addresses of the Appellants or of E3 who are the subject of these proceedings or publish or reveal any information which would be likely to lead to the identification of the Appellants or of E3 or of any member of the Appellants’ families in connection with these proceedings.