CITIZENSHIP: FROM RIGHT TO PRIVILEGE > There is no requirement that the person needs to have been convicted of any offence, let alone a particularly serious one, and many of those deprived have no criminal convictions; > There is no requirement for the Home Office to show objectively reasonable grounds. The vagueness of the criteria for deprivation means it can be used for political purposes: > Citizenship scholar Matthew Gibney described deprivation of citizenship as ���reliant too much on the judgment (or hunches) of a politically elected official’;17 > In the Lords, former DPP Lord Macdonald said of the 2006 changes that they appeared ‘to have been conjured up to serve an entirely party-political purpose’.18 These dangers are enhanced by the denial of any effective challenge to the decision for those subjected to citizenship deprivation. The Principles on Deprivation of Nationality as a National Security Measure (2020) require notification and an opportunity to respond in advance of a decision, written reasons, effective judicial review and the right to remain in or return to the country to participate in the appeal in person.19 Those deprived of British citizenship have none of these rights: > The law was changed in 2004 to enable deprivation to take effect as soon as the person is served with notice instead of after losing an appeal; > Since then, most deprivation decisions are taken when the subject is abroad, and they are immediately prevented from returning to the UK;20 > The Supreme Court recognised in the Shamima Begum case that someone in a prison camp in Syria cannot have an effective appeal against the loss of their citizenship; > But it ruled that the home secretary’s assessment that national security prevented her return took precedence over basic fairness, so she could not return;21 > Even where the person deprived of citizenship can attend their appeal, in national security cases they get little or information or evidence explaining the decision – making it very hard to challenge; > The court cannot decide for itself whether the person being deprived is a national security risk, and can only allow an appeal against deprivation if on the evidence the home secretary’s decision is wholly irrational. The limits of the court’s powers were starkly demonstrated, in March 2022, when the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) dismissed the deprivation appeal of a Britishborn dual British-Moroccan woman who spent her whole life in the UK until, as the judges accepted, she was forced to go to Syria with her abusive and coercive husband, who had 17 ‘Should citizenship be conditional? Denationalisation and liberal principles’, RSC working paper 75, Refugee Studies Centre, 2011, p22. 18 Immigration Bill, HL consideration of Commons amendments, HL Deb 12 May 2014, vol 753, col 1677. 19 Principle 7.6. 20 See Amanda Weston, ‘Deprivation of citizenship – by stealth’, IRR News, 9 June 2011. 21 See R (Begum) v SoSHD, [2021] UKSC 7, 26 February 2021. 9