2. Institutionalised Arbitrariness Introduction Any serious legal evaluation of the structural (this chapter) and procedural operational (see Chapter 3) dimensions of the Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) must begin with a recognition of the constitutional and ethical gravity of the task these bodies are charged with. In contemporary legal and political discourse, the status of citizenship holds a foundational place. Within India’s constitutional scheme, citizenship is the central political status upon which access to many other rights depends. Its deprivation carries grave and far-reaching consequences. Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court of India recently affirmed this in Mohd. Rahim Ali v. State of Assam,45 observing that “[t]he consequences which would befall the person declared as a foreigner are no doubt penal and severe. The moment a person is declared to be a foreigner, he/she is liable to be detained and deported to the country of his/ her origin.” This appreciation aligns with India’s obligations under international human rights law. As a matter of customary international law, India is bound to uphold the right to nationality, which includes a corresponding duty not to arbitrarily deprive individuals of their nationality.46 Embedded within this right is the requirement that citizenship adjudication be free from arbitrariness—procedurally, substantively, and institutionally. The processes and structures responsible for determining nationality must therefore conform to basic standards of fairness, legality, and institutional integrity. 45 46 Rahim Ali (n 2) [45]. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art 15(2); Mirna Adjami and Julia Harrington, ‘The Scope and Content of Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ (2008) 27 Refugee Survey Quarterly 93, 101. 37