Case No. UKUT-00118-(IAC)

of acquiring this status by naturalisation has long been recognised by statue (see in particular the 1948 Act) and is now governed by section 6 of and Schedule 1 to the British Nationality Act 1981. The effect of modern British nationality laws is that loss of the right of abode in the United Kingdom is the main consequence of depriving a person of British citizenship. The affected subject also suffers the loss of associated and consequential rights, duties and opportunities – in particular voting, standing for election, jury service, military service, eligibility for appointment to the Civil Service and access to state benefits, state financed healthcare and state sponsored education. Fundamentally, the relationship between the individual and the State, which lies at the heart of citizenship and nationality, is extinguished. 28. Interestingly, as a perusal of the 1948 and 1981 statutes indicates, successive Governments have declined to define comprehensively the rights attaching to British citizenship through the vehicle of legislation. The Government perspective on the essential elements of citizenship was expressed in the Green Paper “The Governance of Britain” (CM7170) published in July 2007, which focuses (inter alia) on the concepts of membership of the community, national identity, common British values and the constitution. Another report of note in this context is “The Path to Citizenship: Our Common Bond”, which forms part of the background to the 2009 Act. 29. The second main ingredient in the legal context is the decision-making structure devised by the 1981 Act. We have analysed this in [11] – [12] above. In short, decisions of the kind under challenge in these appeals have the status of a notice of intention, under section 40(5) of the 1981 Act, to make a deprivation of citizenship order. If the decision under section 40 (the same structure applies to both section 40(2) and section 40(3)) is not challenged by appeal to the tribunal, the next stage contemplated is a formal order by the Secretary of State. The unexpressed (though perhaps implied) premise is that no deprivation order will be made while an appeal to the tribunal remains undetermined. 30. Loss of British citizenship occurs at the second, rather than the first, of the aforementioned stages. A deprivation of citizenship order – emphatically – does not equate to either removal or deportation of the affected subject from the United Kingdom. Both removal and deportation are governed by other statutory regimes entailing specified procedures, requirements and rights. Removal and deportation decisions may in certain circumstances be challenged by appeal or judicial review proceedings. British citizens are immune from removal and deportation action. Thus they must be deprived of their British citizenship status before either of these courses can be pursued. 31. Accordingly, neither a decision (or notice of intention) to make a deprivation order (these cases) nor a deprivation order itself has the immediate or direct consequence of the affected subject’s removal or deportation from the United Kingdom. It is, of course, reasonable to assume that a notice of intention to make a deprivation of citizenship order will normally be given as a prelude to a deprivation order and a later decision to remove or deport the affected person from the United Kingdom. But the initial decision is correctly to be viewed as a first step. Future steps and stages will require the subject to be actively involved and, in particular, will generate the Secretary of State’s duty under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 to avoid conduct incompatible with protected Convention rights, will engage the common law principles of a fair decision making process, and will also trigger the constraints imposed by any applicable statutory code (for example the UK Borders Act 2007) and established principles of public law. 31. There is no shortage of judicial learning and guidance relating to section 55 of the 2009 Act, which forms the next component of the legal context. The leading decisions, which emanate from the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, were reviewed by this Tribunal in JO and Others (Section 55 Duty) Nigeria [2014] UKUT 00517 (IAC), MK (Section 55 – Tribunal Options) Sierra Leone [2015] UKUT 00223 (IAC) and