BA (Deprivation of Citizenship: Appeals) Ghana: UTIAC 24 Jan 2018

(1) In an appeal under section 40A of the British Nationality Act 1981, the Tribunal must first establish whether the relevant condition precedent in section 40(2) or (3) exists for the exercise of the Secretary of State’s discretion to deprive a person (P) of British citizenship.
(2) In a section 40(2) case, the fact that the Secretary of State is satisfied that deprivation is conducive to the public good is to be given very significant weight and will almost inevitably be determinative of that issue.
(3) In a section 40(3) case, the Tribunal must establish whether one or more of the means described in subsection (3)(a), (b) and (c) were used by P in order to obtain British citizenship. As held in Pirzada (Deprivation of citizenship: general principles) [2017] UKUT 196 (IAC) the deception must have motivated the acquisition of that citizenship.
(4) In both section 40(2) and (3) cases, the fact that the Secretary of State has decided in the exercise of her discretion to deprive P of British citizenship will in practice mean the Tribunal can allow P’s appeal only if satisfied that the reasonably foreseeable consequence of deprivation would violate the obligations of the United Kingdom government under the Human Rights Act 1998 and/or that there is some exceptional feature of the case which means the discretion in the subsection concerned should be exercised differently.
(5) As can be seen from AB (British citizenship: deprivation: Deliallisi considered) (Nigeria) [2016] UKUT 451 (IAC), the stronger P’s case appears to the Tribunal to be for resisting any future (post-deprivation) removal on ECHR grounds, the less likely it will be that P’s removal from the United Kingdom will be one of the foreseeable consequences of deprivation.
(6) The appeal is to be determined by reference to the evidence adduced to the Tribunal, whether or not the same evidence was before the Secretary of State when she made her decision to deprive.

Citations:

[2018] UKUT 85 (IAC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Immigration

Updated: 22 April 2022; Ref: scu.617014