The case of Shamima Begum, the former London schoolgirl who travelled to Syria to join ISIL at the age of 15, is a troubling one, writes Professor Graham Zellick KC, Senior Master of the Bench and a former member of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, in this week’s NLJ
The Home Secretary revoked her British citizenship, which she had held from birth, on the basis she also had Bangladeshi nationality through her mother and therefore would not be rendered stateless.
Zellick questions the actions of the authorities throughout, highlighting there is ‘a credible case that she has been trafficked for sexual exploitation within the meaning of the Anti-Trafficking Convention’ and that, while Home Office officials declared she had Bangladeshi nationality, ‘she couldn’t actually exercise it’.
In February, the Court of Appeal rejected her case on all grounds. Professor Zellick suggests that legal argument on Wednesbury principles might have yielded better results for Begum. He criticises the treatment of Begum and asks whether the ‘draconian sanction’ of removal of citizenship should exist at all.
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