Court clarifies statelessness in Al-Jedda

The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that Home Secretary Theresa May acted unlawfully when she stripped a refugee of his citizenship, because she rendered him stateless.

Hilal Al-Jedda, an Iraqi who claimed asylum in the UK in 1992, was granted British citizenship in 2000, automatically losing his Iraqi citizenship.

In 2004, he travelled to Iraq with his family, where he was arrested and subsequently detained for three years by the British authorities, who believed he was involved in terrorism. Al-Jedda denied the allegations, and no criminal charges were ever brought.

The home secretary then revoked his British citizenship, and he travelled to Turkey. 

Under s 40(4) of the British Nationality Act 1981, a secretary of state may not make a deprivation of citizenship order where satisfied that an order would render a person stateless.

The home secretary argued that her order did not make Al-Jedda stateless because he could have applied for Iraqi citizenship.

Dismissing her appeal, in Home Secretary v Al-Jedda [2013] UKSC 62, Lord Wilson said a s 40(4) inquiry was a “straightforward exercise… it is whether the person holds another nationality at the date of the order”. 

Lord Wilson noted that Home Office guidance on statelessness, published this year, incorporated the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ guidance, which provides that “an individual’s nationality is to be assessed as at the time of determination of eligibility…it is neither a historic nor a predictive exercise”. 

Phil Shiner, solicitor at Public Interest Lawyers, who acted for Al-Quedda, says the ruling “clarifies the law relating to statelessness”.

In separate proceedings, the European Court of Human Rights held in 2011 that Al-Jedda’s internment in Iraq had breached his Art 5(1) right to liberty.