The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Begum must look to Supreme Court as citizenship case fails
IS bride knew what she was doing when going to Syria, rules judge who rejects her appeal on all five grounds
SHAMIMA BEGUM has lost her Court of Appeal challenge against the removal of her British citizenship.
Three Court of Appeal judges, led by Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, ruled unanimously that it was lawful for the Government to strip the IS bride of her citizenship on national security grounds after she travelled to Syria as a 15 year old in 2015 to join Isil. Lady Carr told the court that they had rejected her appeal on all five grounds lodged by her lawyers.
She said: “It could be argued that the decision in Ms Begum’s case was harsh. It could also be argued that Ms Begum is the author of own misfortune but it is not for this court to agree or disagree with either point of view.
“Our only task is to assess whether the deprivation [of citizenship] decision was unlawful. We have concluded that it was not and the appeal is dismissed.”
Begum has been backed by legal aid to bring the action as she has no financial means to support her case. She had received nearly £250,000 of legal aid as of August 2021, according to a Freedom of Information request.
The rejection of the appeal means that Begum, now 24 years old, will remain in the al-Roj detention camp in north-eastern Syria for the foreseeable future as she is effectively stateless. Although British born, she had Bangladeshi citizenship until at least she was 21 but the country has made clear it will not accept her.
Begum, who was born and raised in Tower Hamlets, east London, travelled to Syria via Turkey and aligned herself with IS. She married an IS fighter soon after arriving and had three children, none of whom survived.
As the IS caliphate collapsed, Sajid Javid, the then home secretary, used his powers under the British Nationality Act 1981 to deprive her of her citizenship. She sought to return to the UK in 2019 to challenge the move but this was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2021. She was therefore forced to lodge her appeal against the revocation of her citizenship from northern Syria without giving evidence in person.
Her appeal was rejected by the special immigration appeal commission (SIAC) in February last year, a decision that she appealed to the Court of Appeal, which gave its judgement yesterday and rejected it on all five grounds.
Lady Carr said Begum had appealed on five grounds, the first of which was that the home secretary had failed to consider whether she had been a potential victim of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation when she travelled to Syria via Turkey. Her lawyers argued this amounted to a breach of article four of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) that no-one should be held in slavery or servitude.
However, the Court of Appeal judges rejected the claim, saying that there was only an “arguable” rather than “actual” breach of the ECHR because of the lack of any conclusive evidence that she had been trafficked. The second was the “passage of time” between the suspected trafficking in 2015 and the decision to strip her of her citizenship after she had spent four years living with IS.
Begum’s lawyers argued that the home secretary had failed to take into account the possibility that she had been a victim of trafficking in breach of common law. However, Lady Carr said that the home secretary was aware of the circumstances of her departure to Syria and took account of the possibility she had been trafficked.
“That assessment was kept under review,” she said. “Ms Begum may well have been influenced and manipulated by others, but still have made a calculated decision to travel to Syria and align with Isil,” she added. 3. Begum was made stateless
Begum’s lawyers argued that the home secretary failed to consider that section 40 of the British Nationality Act 1981 barred him from making anyone stateless. Although she retained Bangladeshi citizenship, they said it would “de facto” make her stateless as there was “no realistic possibility” that she could live in the country. However, the judges said the Home Secretary had no duty to take this into account.
Begum’s lawyers said she should have been notified of the home secretary’s intention to strip her of her citizenship. But Lady Carr said: “Notifying a person abroad of an intention to remove their citizenship could enable that person to make a preemptive return to the UK and frustrate the purpose of the deprivation decision.”
Begum’s lawyers argued that depriving her of her citizenship also breached equality laws in that such revocation powers had been “disproportionately applied to British Muslims”.
The Court of Appeal ruled, however, that there was a specific exemption ‘Begum may well have been influenced, but still have made a calculated decision to travel to Syria’ under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 allowing ministers to take action to “safeguard national security”.
Summing up the judgement, she said: “In conclusion, for these reasons, we unanimously dismissed the appeal.”
Begum’s lawyers have said they will “keep fighting” after she lost the challenge over the removal of her British citizenship at the Court of Appeal.
Her lawyers must now seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, and ultimately, if they fail there, could seek to take it to the ECHR.