MK (A Child By Her Litigation Friend CAE), R (On the Application O... 11 of 12 http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2017/1365.html application for registration as a British citizen in circumstances such as C's, she requires 'confirmation from the Indian authorities (in one version it is 'the authorities in India') that C's birth has not been registered in accordance with Indian law and that she is not a national of India'. There is copious evidence before me of the difficulty, perhaps the impossibility, of providing such evidence. I accept that the difficulties may have been exaggerated. Although there are a number of places in the United Kingdom where registration takes place, it appears that they each have exclusive jurisdiction over such matters in a part of the United Kingdom, so that if C has only ever been resident in the Midlands, a statement from the Consulate in Birmingham would provide part of the evidence; but it would not of itself show that registration had not been effected elsewhere. Further, registration of this sort is not the only way in which Indian nationality may be obtained by a person in C's situation, and there appears to be no central register of who is a citizen of India 40. The Secretary of State is clearly entitled to require that an applicant for British citizenship proves his or her entitlement, and in my judgment is entitled to require evidence tending to establish the issue at the level of certainty appropriate for such an important and far-reaching act of the State. But she is not entitled to impose requirements that make it impossible for an individual to obtain a benefit that is his by statute. It is sometimes difficult, though not usually impossible, to prove a negative. But it may be simply impossible in an individual case to obtain documents of a category specified as generally obligatory. There may well be rules or guidance about what needs to be provided, but there will have to be flexibility to cover cases where it will be exceptionally difficult or impossible to obtain the documents sought. In such cases the Secretary of State has to be willing to consider proof by some other means. Her unwillingness to do so, despite the evidence of difficulty, appears to me to be unreasonable. 41. It is not for me to specify what evidence the Secretary of State ought to consider adequate. But, despite the suggestion that it would be 'self-serving' it appears to me that a clear unambiguous sworn statement by each of the parents ought to be regarded as having some value. From the evidence before me it appears that a statement from the relevant Consulate might in many cases be of great assistance. If citizenship is obtained by fraud, false representation or concealment of a material fact it may be revoked under s 40(3) of the 1981 Act – to which s 40(4) does not apply. So the Secretary of State has a remedy if her flexibility is abused. For the present it is sufficient for me to say that the imposition of an inflexible procedural requirement of confirmation from the Indian authorities that C's birth has not been registered in accordance with Indian law and that she is not a national of India was unlawful in the context of the Secretary of State's knowledge of the extreme difficulty or impossibility of fully satisfying that precise requirement. Article 8 and the best interests of the child. 42. Mr Burrett's original grounds, and some brief submissions at the hearing, were directed to a suggestion that the Secretary of State's refusal of a grant of citizenship was contrary to C's rights under article 8 of the ECHR, or failed to take account of her best interests, or both. These submissions are of no weight. 43. First, whatever view I had taken of the other grounds of claim, the submissions have to be seen as a claim that the Secretary of State should have granted citizenship to C despite not being entitled under the statute and such lawful procedural rules and guidance as might govern its implementation. This is therefore a claim that in the circumstances of this case nothing other than an exercise of the prerogative power to grant citizenship would have net the needs of the case. Secondly, any claim of this sort has to be made on the basis of the evidence of the individual circumstances of the claimant: but it is here made in purely general terms. Thirdly, as the defendant points out, it is not suggested that the present decision entails the claimant's removal from the United Kingdom. 44. Even if that were suggested, there is no general basis upon which these submissions could succeed. It is obviously not in general contrary to a child's best interest to be exposed to life in various countries. The court cannot take the view that other civilised countries are places that it is contrary 20/05/2021, 15:49