In 2006, a further amendment allowed for deprivation of nationality that would be, to the
satisfaction of the Home Secretary, “conducive to the public good.”132 Deprivations resulting in
statelessness were still not permitted. Between 2006 and 2014, the United Kingdom made
increasing use of its deprivation powers, revoking citizenship of at least 373 British citizens.133
As of 2014, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism identified 15 cases of individuals deprived of
nationality on national security grounds while abroad.134 According to media reports, “[t]his
power has almost exclusively been used against Muslims and such decisions will confirm to
many that British Muslims are second class citizens in the eyes of the government.”135
In 2014, the United Kingdom expanded its deprivation power once again, to cover denationalization leading to statelessness in the case of naturalized British citizens, if reasonable ground
exists to believe the person could obtain another nationality.136 The 2014 changes do not
appear to comply with the United Kingdom’s obligations under the 1961 Convention on the
Reduction of Statelessness, as the Justice Initiative has argued in a legal opinion on the question.137
Prior to the 2014 amendments to the British Nationality Act (BNA), the Supreme Court
decided in Secretary of State for the Home Department v. Al-Jedda that the British Nationality Act
provisions prohibiting creation of statelessness precluded the Home Secretary from issuing
deprivation orders in cases where the individual concerned did not possess another nationality
at the time of the order.138 The legislative history of the 2014 amendments makes clear that the
Home Secretary’s loss in the Al-Jedda case was the reason for the newly expanded powers. Just
weeks after the amendment was enacted, the Home Secretary issued a fresh order for Mr.
Al-Jedda’s denationalization.
The Al-Jedda decision and subsequent contentious amendments to the BNA, according to one
scholar, “speak volumes for the fact that state power is not unrestricted and that state sovereignty is limited by international obligations (the statelessness issue) and their application by
(national) courts.”139 This is an optimistic, if technically correct, take on the ability of international obligations to provide meaningful redress in citizenship deprivation cases.
One year after the BNA amendments, the case of Pham Minh Quang would reach the UK
Supreme Court. Pham was born in Vietnam and came to the United Kingdom seeking asylum
at the age of six.140 He travelled to Yemen in 2010, taking on a role as an assistant for an
al-Qaeda publication and swearing allegiance to al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula.141 Upon his
return to the United Kingdom, Pham received an order depriving him of British nationality.
Deportation proceedings ensued, triggering Vietnam to deny that Pham was a Vietnamese
citizen.142 His case thus presented a quandary: how did Pham become stateless and when? The
Supreme Court focused on the latter question, deciding that because the deprivation order
preceded Vietnam’s pronouncement that Pham was not a citizen, British authorities were not
responsible for his statelessness.143 In February 2015, while his challenge to denationalization
38
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