Case No. UKUT-00118-(IAC)

56. The policy issue which arises in these appeals is a reflection of the lean, economic model for which the legislature opted in devising section 40 of the 1981 Act. A deprivation of citizenship measure is lawful only where the Secretary of State is “ … satisfied that deprivation is conducive to the public good ”, per section 40(2). This criterion is not defined. Nor is there any provision in section 40 requiring the Secretary of State to have regard to a series of obligatory considerations. 57. The Secretary of State has chosen to adopt a policy relating to the exercise of the power conferred by section 40(2). The Appellants do not make the case that the Secretary of State failed to take this policy into account. Indeed it is apparent from the text of the impugned decisions that the decision makers were alert to it. Rather, this ground of appeal is to the effect that (a) the policy requires the subjects of this type of decision to have engaged in serious organised crime, and, (b) the Appellants’ criminality is not of this character. The Secretary of State, it is argued, erred in law accordingly. The consequential error of law of the FtT was its failure to diagnose the Secretary of State’s legal misdirection and, in this context, Mr Jafferji further submitted that there was an insufficiency of material before the FtT. 58. The material point of reference is chapter 55 of the “UK Visas and Immigration Nationality Instructions: Volume 1” which deals with deprivation (section 40) and nullity. This is a publication of the Secretary of State, available in the public domain. It takes the form of policy guidance and instructions directed to case workers. The subject matter of chapter 55 is “Deprivation and Nullity of British Citizenship”. This contains, at paragraph 55.4.4, the following statement: “ ’Conduciveness to the public good’ means depriving in the public interest on the grounds of involvement in terrorism, espionage, serious organised crime, war crimes or unacceptable behaviours. ” This passage first appeared in the version of this publication introduced in 2014. 59. This ground of appeal invokes a further Government publication. This is a Command Paper entitled “Serious and Organized Crime Strategy” (CM8715) published in October 2013. The Foreword to this publication, signed by the Home Secretary, employs the language “ serious and organized crime ”. The expressed purpose of the publication is to broadcast to the public a new cross - Government strategy which has been adopted in conjunction with the creation of the National Crime Agency and certain policing reforms. The use of the descriptor “ serious and organized ” is not uniform. In some parts of the Foreword, the adjective employed is “ organized ”. The same applies to the “Executive Summary” and other parts of the publication. 60. CM8715 is a relatively bulky and dense publication. It consists of 75 pages. The submissions of Mr Jafferji escorted us to various passages, all of which we have considered. In the course of argument we suggested that its structure is broad and open ended and its language open textured. For the purpose of disposing of this ground of appeal, we propose to make brief references only to the text: