Legal briefing: Statelessness and the right to respect for private and family life October 2024 become stateless, if deprived of British citizenship. However, the Court of Appeal held that the Upper Tribunal, in finding that KV had not proved this fact, had misread the Sri Lankan Citizenship Act, and there was in fact a reasonable inference that the appellant had ceased to be a citizen of Sri Lanka when granted British citizenship. The deprivation of British citizenship would therefore leave the applicant stateless. As such, it found that the Upper Tribunal had erred in treating the First Tier Tribunal’s failure on the question of statelessness as immaterial. The Council of State of the Netherlands249 ruled on decisions to declare a Dutch national associated with ISIS undesirable and to withdraw her Dutch nationality. The Council of State held that the withdrawal of nationality should be assessed together with Article 8 ECHR, because this decision could breach her right to family and private life. Referring to ECtHR case law, the Council of State held the authorities should have struck a fair balance between the interests of the applicant and her family and the Dutch public interest, taking into consideration the severity of the crime committed, the length of the residence in the Netherlands, the family life of the applicant, and the interest and welfare of the applicant’s children, in particular the seriousness of the problems the children might encounter in the country of deportation, in accordance with their best interests. The Council of State found that the decisions should be annulled on the grounds that they did not sufficiently take into consideration the best interests of her minor children and her right to family life. 249 Netherlands, AB Council of State (Raad van State), 202006910/1/V1 & 202006913/1/V6, 29 June 2022. 43