Report on United Kingdom individuals have to establish the status of their parents at the time of their birth. However, anyone born in the UK before 1983 would have been born British, so the cut-off date falls after the immigration of a substantial community from the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent. Those most affected by the loss of ius solis have typically been the children of asylum seekers, failed asylum seekers and irregular migrants for whom return to their country of nationality is extremely problematic. Some of these children may eventually be entitled to register as British citizens if they avoid removal for the first ten years of their life.56 Meanwhile, as discussed, changes to the law of deprivation of citizenship have affected dual nationals and naturalised citizens, drawing a greater distinction between those whose ancestral roots are outside or inside the UK. Attempts to deport more foreign nationals convicted of criminal offences have also resulted in the removal of substantial numbers of long-term foreign residents, including those who have been resident since childhood and know no other life. 3.7 Citizenship and human rights The UK has had several cases on nationality heard in the European Court of Human Rights. The East African Asians case, already discussed, came close to succeeding but the government succeeded in settling the case before it was fully heard. Abdulaziz, Cabrales and Balkandali, in 1985, while it established that article 8 may be engaged by immigration controls and that discrimination on grounds of sex was not permitted, found that discrimination between nationals on the basis of their place of birth was justified. Sorabjee and Jaramillo confirmed in 1995 that rights incidental to citizenship, such as the right of a person to live in their own country, would not be protected by the Strasbourg court, at least so far as this concerned British children expelled with their foreign parents. 57 Although this was consistent with previous cases, the expectation had been that the partial move away from ius soli would make a difference, not least because part of the ratio of earlier decisions had been a view that the acquisition of British nationality by children whose foreign parents were passing through the UK at the time of their birth was somehow less valid than if the British nationality system had required the parents to be citizens or at least long-term residents.58 The position of citizen children however has improved after the decision in ZH (Tanzania) v SSHD [2011] UKSC 4. which found that a child’s best interests included the right to grow up in its country of nationality and that this must be a primary consideration when making immigration decisions about their parents. The case was made possible by the removal of the UK’s immigration exemption to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the creation of a statutory duty to make children’s interests a primary consideration in immigration decisions (although Lady Hale’s lead judgment suggested that this added little to existing article 8 obligations). While there is no absolute prohibition, it is now unlikely that a parent will be removed if the result is that a citizen child will also have to leave the UK. Also at the domestic level, it was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in Harrison that citizenship and immigration are not matters that attract the protection of Article 6 ECHR (the right to a fair trial in the determination of civil rights).59 56 S.00 BNA 1981. 57 See note 16 above. 58 For closer discussion of these cases see Mole 1995. 59 Harrison vs Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] EWCA Civ 432 RSCAS/EUDO-CIT-CR 2014/1 - © 2014 Authors 21

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