Case No. UKUT-00118-(IAC)

, which concerned a judicial review challenge to the making of an order to deprive an individual of citizenship, the EU law argument was formulated in very specific terms. The contention advanced was that the Secretary of State had been obliged (and had failed) to observe procedural principles of EU law in making the impugned order: specifically that EU law procedural principles entitled him to attend in person his appeal in the United Kingdom. The critical passages in the leading judgment (of Laws LJ) are in [38] – [39]. The central theme of the decision of the Court of Appeal is that the subject of national citizenship lies exclusively within the competence of individual EU Member States in which EU law has no role to play. We presume to observe that this is well established doctrine. G1 was considered by the Upper Tribunal in AB which, in substance, acknowledged that this general principle may require modification in a deprivation of citizenship case involving a cross-border element: see [85] and [87]. 53. Most recently, these issues were considered, but not decided, by the Supreme Court in Pham v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] UKSC 19. There the EU law dimension canvassed was the EU principle of proportionality. The appeal against the Secretary of State’s “notice of intention” decision had been allowed by SIAC on the ground that the effect of the decision would be to render the appellant stateless. The Court of Appeal reversed this decision and remitted the case to SIAC to determine the other grounds of appeal. The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeal. Interesting though the judgments of the Supreme Court Justices are, for our purposes the most important consideration is that the decision in G1 was not overruled. Being a decision of the Court of Appeal, it is binding on this Tribunal by the operation of the doctrine of precedent. This provides a complete answer to this ground of appeal. 54. We add two observations. The first is that, albeit in Article 8(2) proportionality – rather than EU law proportionality – terms, the FtT examined this issue exhaustively and concluded that the impugned decisions of the Secretary of State were a proportionate means of furthering the legitimate aims pursued. Our second observation relates to the context in which proportionality has been raised on behalf of the second to fourth Appellants. We have analysed this at some length above. Based on this analysis, it seems to us that the proportionality challenge to the Secretary of State’s decisions savours more of a preliminary skirmish than a major battle having final and decisive consequences. The real battleground for representations, evidence, assessment and determination relating to proportionality, which will include any legal duty of enquiry on the part of the Secretary of State which may arise and will have a clear section 55 dimension, will materialize in the future, in the likely event that the Secretary of State will proceed to make deprivation of citizenship orders and, subsequent thereto, deportation or removal orders. 55. We conclude therefore that this ground of appeal has no merit.