New citizenship deprivation [revocation] rules in the wake of Paris attacks

2015/12/11 Leave a comment

Good update of citizenship revocation measures:

The terrorist attacks that happened in Paris on 13 November 2015 have been followed by a toughening of citizenship rules in a number of countries. This is reflected in both a more cautious approach to naturalisation and in proposals to withdraw or deny citizenship to suspects of terrorism (and occasionally to their families).

Increased security concerns adversely affected the Italian attempts to introduce ius soli temperato (moderated ius soli) for second generation migrants. Moderated ius soli would allow children born to foreign nationals in possession of a European Union Long Term Residence Permit to acquire Italian nationality by registration before the eighteenth birthday.

Yet considerably more countries have proposed, and some have already adopted, provisions on grounds of which suspects of terrorism would be deprived of their citizenship.

Three days after the attacks in Paris, speaking at a joint session of both houses of the French parliament, the country’s President François Hollande  proposed citizenship deprivation for dual nationals who are convicted of terrorism.

On 22 November 2015, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put forward a motion to allow the country’s government to withdraw citizenship of those who join the Islamic State.

In early December, the authorities of Dagestan, a Russian federal unit located in the North Caucasus, proposed to the Russian Duma to amend the country’s citizenship law to deprive of citizenship those who ‘left Russia to take part in terrorist activities’.

Similar initiative has also resonated in the Belgian public discourse, where he Flemish nationalist party NVA, argues for amendments to citizenship law to allow the deprivation of nationality to descendants of Belgian citizens (second and third generations) convicted of terrorism. The current citizenship legislation allows withdrawal of citizenship, but only for those who are not born Belgians, or who have acquired citizenship by naturalisation.

Two countries, Australia and Azerbaijan have already amended their legislation in this regard.

Australia has moved to strip dual nationals who ‘have fought in government-designated militant groups or engaged in activities that would support terrorism, such as training, recruitment, or making donations’ already in June 2015 when it adopted the Allegiance to Australia bill. In December 2015, the bill was amended and leads to automatic loss of Australian citizenship for individuals suspected of terrorism who are 14 years or older, even in the absence of conviction. Under the new provisions, citizenship lost on grounds of sections 33AA and 35 cannot be regained. Civil society organisations consider this a controversial and possibly unconstitutional move that creates two classes of citizenship.

The parliament of Azerbaijan amended the country’s s citizenship law on 4 December to withdraw citizenship of those ‘involved in terrorist activity and actions aimed at the violent change of the constitutional system of Azerbaijan’. Under the new rules, such individuals will be automatically deprived of Azerbaijani citizenship.

For more details on the current and past citizenship laws of Italy, France, Belgium and Russia consult our country profile pages.

Source: EUDO CITIZENSHIP

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Hollande’s plans to strip dual nationals of citizenship stirs the Left – France

2015/12/05 Leave a comment

Healthy debate to have:

French government plans to toughen security laws in the wake of the Paris attacks, which include stripping dual nationals of their citizenship, have come under fierce scrutiny from members within its own ranks. Lille mayor and former labour minister Martine Aubry has called into question the moral basis of the move.

“I’m not sure stripping dual nationals of their citizenship is absolutely necessary,” Martine Aubry told French TV channel BFM on Thursday.

The French government has introduced a raft of security measures since the Paris attacks on 13 November. The police has carried out over 2000 raids on suspects with terrorist links as part of new emergency state laws. Today President François Hollande wants the state to have even more sweeping powers, such as being able to strip dual nationals of their citizenship if they’re involved in terrorist offences.

The prospect has sent alarm bells ringing within his Socialist party, concerned that the Left is jerking dangerously towards the Right.

“Should we treat dual nationals born in France differently? Should we be suspicious of anyone whose parents come from abroad?” Aubry continued.

In essence, the former Labour minister is criticizing what she considers to be a knee-jerk reaction on the part of the president “to give the allusion that he’s going far enough.”

Her comments come three days before regional elections, in which the Far-right Front National is slated to win.

The Paris attacks have reshaped the context. The focus is now less on social issues–although unemployment is higher than ever according to fresh statistics published on Thursday-and now more concentrated on security. A growing number of candidates are opting for stringent security measures in their manifestos to compete with Marine Le Pen.

“It’s out of the question to let the Front National win,” Aubry added, pledging her “full” support to François Hollande in regional elections, of which the first round kicks off this Sunday.

The fact remains however, that she still has doubts on whether his security face-lift suits him.

Source: Hollande’s plans to strip dual nationals of citizenship stirs the Left – France – RFI

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Refusal to grant British citizenship to extremist’s family ruled unlawful

2015/12/05 Leave a comment

Over-reach, not authorized by legislation (apart from the substance):

An unprecedented decision by the home secretary, Theresa May, to refuse British citizenship to the wife and children of a supporter of Osama bin Laden in order to deter other potential extremists has been ruled unlawful by the high court.

Mr Justice Ouseley quashed the refusal of British citizenship to the wife and two adult children of the Islamist extremist, who is a refused asylum seeker but cannot be deported to Egypt for fear he will be tortured.

The judge said May had acted unlawfully because parliament had not expressly provided that British citizenship could be refused to deter others from engaging in extremism in the future.

The Egyptian family, who have been in Britain since 1994, cannot be named and were referred to in court as HY, MM, GY and TY. The father has been described by the Home Office as an Islamist extremist and is listed by the United Nations as associated with al-Qaida through Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

The mother, aged 51, is bedridden and mainly lives with her husband, while their children, who are in their 20s, have left home and are following professional careers and have their own families. All were given indefinite leave to remain in Britain in May 2009.

The family’s barrister, Michael Fordham QC , told a hearing in October that the wife and children were “blameless individuals whose good character is unimpeachable” and were being blamed for the “sins of their father”, who was no longer regarded as a threat by the security services.

The judge said they were each regarded as being able to truthfully take the citizenship oath and pledge of allegiance in good faith. The Home Office said there were “no lurking doubts” or reasons to suspect they were in any way involved in extremism.

…Robin Tam QC, for the home secretary, said British citizenship was a privilege and not a right, and it was not irrational to deny it as a deterrent to individuals connected by blood or marriage to those who had engaged in extremist activities.

Ouseley did not agree. He said there was “real unfairness in refusing naturalisation to someone who qualified in all other respects, in order to provide a general deterrent to others, over whom the applicants had no control”.

The judge said that if parliament had ever intended the home secretary to use such a discretionary power, it would have expressly provided for it. He said the effect of her approach, which he said was unprecedented, was to force applicants to choose between family and British citizenship in order to deter others from extremist activities.

Source: Refusal to grant British citizenship to extremist’s family ruled unlawful | UK news | The Guardian

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European Union Democracy Observatory on #Citizenship Revocation Workshop papers

2015/11/26 Leave a comment

An extensive series of papers on the issue of citizenship revocation and banishment. For the cognoscenti given the amount of the material.

Audrey Macklin’s rebuttal of those advocating revocation (Kay Hailbronner, Christian Joppke and Peter Schuck) is, no surprise to those who follow my blog, convincing:

Ultimately, arguments about citizenship revocation turn on underlying conceptions of what citizenship is for, and expectations about what citizenship as legal status can achieve. Citizenship signifies membership, but beyond that general descriptor, citizenship inhabits multiple registers across many disciplines which are not reducible to or fully commensurate with one another. Citizenship as legal status is powerful because it carries the force of law, but also limited in what it can achieve for precisely the same reason. It is enabled and constrained because it is citizenship law and because it is citizenship law.

States can and do use law to promote and endorse commitment, patriotism and active citizenship. They do it through public education, programmes for social inclusion, support and assistance, support for the arts and recreation, and other policies that build solidarity and encourage ‘good citizenship’. These various spheres of public activity are enabled through legal frameworks, and so law plays an important role here. Citizenship law’s chief constructive contribution lies in imposing (reasonable) requirements for naturalisation (such as residence and language acquisition) that genuinely facilitate integration and commitment to the national community.

The state must also be concerned about ‘bad citizenship’ and it falls to the criminal justice and national security regimes to address the most egregious conduct that endangers or harms the national community. To conclude that contemporary citizenship law is ill-suited to advancing punitive goals does not deny that some people are very bad citizens, or that law plays a crucial role in addressing that fact. It simply opposes the recruitment of citizenship law to punish bad citizens by demoting them to non-citizens[9]. A man who attacks his mother may be a terrible son who deserves to be prosecuted for his crime, but it is not the job of family law to disclaim him as the son of his mother. Citizenship law is not criminal law. Nor is it national security law. Nor should it be rigged to open up a trap door that shunts citizens to immigration law.

Accounting for citizenship status’ specific legal character also guides us toward what law can (and cannot) achieve. A number of plausible accounts of citizenship’s normative foundation circulate in political theory. They typically involve some idea of commitment or allegiance, whether to the state, the constitution, or democratic self-government. I do not here express a preference among them, but rather observe that they tend to focus on the internal relationship between state and citizen, and the grounds upon which the relationship may be properly said to have ruptured. They do not attend to the external dimension of legal citizenship, namely the role of nationality in stabilising the international filing system for humanity, and they do not furnish a satisfactory normative explanation for why the ‘bad citizen’ should be assigned to another state.

Citizenship law cannot subject to legal regulation the myriad values, practices and aspirations ascribed to citizenship-as-belonging. This is unsurprising: Citizenship status enfranchises citizens above the age of majority, but there is no legal compulsion to vote (except in Australia. Belgium, Brazil and a few other states) and citizenship law does not purport to penalise those who never exercise their right or duty of active citizenship. Citizenship law does not purport to regulate access to most types of civil and social citizenship (in Marshallian terms).

Nevertheless, defenders of revocation insist that citizenship law can and should regulate ‘loyalty and allegiance’ of citizens. The criminal law can punish people for intentionally committing wrongful acts, including treason, murder, and all other forms of horrific violence that concern us here. Some assailants may openly express contempt for their country of citizenship, while others (like the Ottawa shooter Joppke cites) display a messy history of mental illness and petty criminality preceding recent conversion to Islam. The putative value added by citizenship revocation is precisely that it makes lack of allegiance and loyalty the central element in defining crimes against citizenship. But to paraphrase Aldous Huxley, loyalty and allegiance are like happiness. They are byproducts of other activities. Fostering love of country is a valid aspiration of states and worth cultivating. But it cannot be manufactured by the carrot of a citizenship oath (as Joppke has elsewhere acknowledged), nor will it be conjured by the stick of revocation. Law is not adept at producing sentiment on command.

Space constraints have led me to focus on those submissions that directly challenge my own position, and I have not responded to the cogent, provocative and creative insights offered by so many contributors. My own thinking has been deepened and provoked by them, for which I express gratitude and appreciation. I admit that I took as my remit citizenship revocation only in the literal, legal sense. I also acknowledge the criticism that confining my focus to citizenship revocation does not pay due regard to the claim that deportation of non-citizens may also constitute banishment in some circumstances, with attendant human rights implications. I hope that nothing I have said here gives the appearance of foreclosing or prejudging broader or different conceptions of banishment. There is always more to be said, and much to be done.

Source: EUDO CITIZENSHIP

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Inside the $100 Million Scheme to Send the Middle East’s Most Unwanted People to Africa | VICE News

2015/11/24 Leave a comment

More on how the Gulf states use citizenship policy:

El-Baghdadi’s experience isn’t new or uncommon for Middle East’s large and rapidly growing community of exiles and refugees. Palestinians have been expelled in large numbers from both Jordan and Kuwait in the past when they’ve rubbed those countries’ rulers the wrong way.

What is new, however, is the way the Gulf States, intolerant even of critical tweets, are now punishing their own citizens by rendering them stateless. This, el-Baghdadi says, is part of a new, harsher interpretation of the social contract among the region’s oil and gas rich monarchies. “Being a citizen or a ‘local’ can potentially make you a lifelong recipient of government largess,” he says. In return for a cradle-to-grave welfare system “you just need to be completely apolitical and quiet.” Rocking the boat has become an increasingly risky business.

Since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, three of the Gulf states have revoked the citizenships of hundreds of people, the majority of them advocates for political reform or democratization. Bahrain has revoked the citizenship of 159 people since 2012; Kuwait made about 100 of its citizens non-Kuwaitis with the stroke of a pen in 2014 and 2015. The UAE stripped seven of its citizens of their nationality in 2011; in July 2014, the regional Al Sharq newspaper claimed that hundreds more had been secretly rendered stateless. Amnesty International has independently made a similar claim — that Emerati authorities planned to revoke the citizenship of “scores” of nationals.

Abu Dhabi. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

In 2014, Oman passed a law allowing the government to arbitrarily revoke the citizenship of anyone working “against the interests” of the state, and Bahrain passed similar legislation allowing the state to strip the citizenship of anyone who failed “the duty of loyalty.” Saudi officials have publicly mulled following suit.

This January, Kuwaiti authorities arrested Saad al-Ajmi, the onetime director of the Kuwait office of the Saudi Arabian television channel Al-Arabiya, as he was about to board a flight to Saudi Arabia with his family. His arrest — for skipping out on a short jail sentence that he says he was not aware of — surprised many in Kuwait who knew al-Ajmi as the well-regarded spokesman for the Popular Action Bloc, a parliamentary coalition that is vocally critical of the government appointed directly by the Emir of Kuwait. Surprise turned to shock when, three months later, al-Ajmi was stripped of Kuwaiti citizenship and deported from the country.

When the head of a household loses citizenship in Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE, their families are often also stripped of their citizenship, creating a multiplier effect: Hundreds of people may have ultimately lost their status as Kuwaiti citizens due to the purge of 2014, according to human rights researchers tracking their cases, while more than 1,000 Bahrainis may have been plunged into the administrative void. These are people who learn that they and their loved ones have gone from being citizens of some of the world’s wealthiest countries — and most comprehensive welfare states — to being outcasts and exiles without a home.

Source: Inside the $100 Million Scheme to Send the Middle East’s Most Unwanted People to Africa | VICE News

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Court told to freeze citizenship revocations in terror cases

2015/11/18 Leave a comment

No surprise and consistent with campaign pledge and mandate letters:

The federal government is walking away from a legal battle over attempts to strip Canadian citizenship from dual-nationals convicted of terrorism offences.

Lawyers for the government recently asked the Federal Court to suspend proceedings in two cases brought by Canadians convicted of terrorism-related offences who had been told by the previous Conservative government they would lose their citizenship.

As a respondent in the cases, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship cannot abandon the litigation but, instead, asked for and was granted adjournments while it re-examines a policy that featured prominently in last month’s federal election.

“The Department will work with Minister (John) McCallum on the urgent review of the policy and legislation related to the new citizenship revocation provisions,” media relations adviser Nancy Caron said in an email.

She repeated the line used by then-Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau during a campaign leadership debate, when he argued that Stephen Harper, prime minister at the time, had breached a fundamental principle of citizenship with Bill C-24, which allows the government to rescind the Canadian citizenship of dual nationals convicted of certain serious offences.

“The prime minister has been clear that ‘a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,’ and he doesn’t support the revocation provisions that have a different impact on dual citizens than other Canadians,” said Caron.

In September, former Ottawa radiology technician Misbahuddin Ahmed took the government to court over a July 2015 decision to strip him citizenship.

Ahmed, 31, is currently serving a 12-year sentence in a medium-security federal prison for his role in the planned terrorist attacks foiled by the Project Samosa investigation. If he lost his citizenship, he would have been deported to Pakistan upon his release.

In a Charter challenge, he claimed the attempt to rescind his Canadian citizenship violated his right to safety of the person because he would be deported to a place where he would likely be at risk of mistreatment. He also argued the law offended the principles of justice because the sanction was introduced only after he was convicted.

Now, these issues will not likely be tested in court, as the government is expected to rescind the provisions in C-24 — even as France moves to expand its powers to revoke citizenship from dual nationals.

The Canadian government has also asked for a suspension in a similar case brought by Saad Gaya, a 27-year-old convicted in the “Toronto 18” bomb plot. He is serving an 18-year prison sentence.

Gaya was born in Montreal and had never visited Pakistan, but could be deported there after serving his sentence because, the government had argued, his parents had passed their dual nationality on to him.

Before C-24, Canadian citizenship could be revoked only in cases of fraudulent applications — when a subject had obtained citizenship based on false pretences. The Tories expanded the conditions to include those convicted of terrorism, treason or participation in military action against Canada.

Source: Court told to freeze citizenship revocations in terror cases | Ottawa Citizen

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Allan Richarz: No, a Canadian is not a Canadian. It’s perfectly fine to strip citizenship from terrorists | National Post

2015/11/13 Leave a comment

“Minor expansion?” No, it is not, nor was it communicated (or marketed) as such by the previous government:

Essentially, opposition to Bill C-24 is more political than principled. Accepting the stripping of a fraudster’s citizenship as a legitimate exercise of government power, but viewing the same action against a convicted terrorist as indicative of Harperian fascism, is logically inconsistent. The more accurate position would be that critics of Bill C-24 accept that the government may strip individuals of their citizenship in certain instances, but that they do not believe terrorism or treason should qualify. Polite political disagreement, however, does not make much of a splash, especially during an overheated election campaign.

This is an issue the Trudeau government will have to address. If the incoming prime minister believes citizenship is inviolable, will he then undo decades of law and policy by closing the fraud and crimes against humanity loopholes as well? If he opposes Bill C-24’s expanded powers for political reasons, will he have the temerity to say so directly and risk the political fallout of being “soft on terror”? Such forthrightness would certainly be a welcome change in Canadian politics. One gets the feeling, however, that Trudeau will simply use the issue to get a few more miles out of the Harper boogeyman.

At the end of the day, the government is well within its rights to add to the list of those who may be stripped of citizenship. It is a legitimate exercise in regard to the fraudster, and it is to the terrorist. Bill C-24 is a minor expansion of traditional categories of citizenship revocation and not a radical departure in Canadian politics.

Source: Allan Richarz: No, a Canadian is not a Canadian. It’s perfectly fine to strip citizenship from terrorists | National Post

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Mohamed Fahmy Says Tory Law Made Him Fear Losing Canadian #Citizenship

2015/11/11 Leave a comment

Not surprising, given his circumstances and how C-24 was drafted:

As he languished in an Egyptian prison, Mohamed Fahmy feared he might lose his Canadian citizenship under a controversial and recently enacted law, the since-freed journalist said Monday.

While behind bars, Fahmy read the former Conservative government’s new law, which allows for the revocation of citizenship of someone convicted of terrorism, treason or espionage.

“It hit right home with me because it surfaced during my imprisonment, and I was a candidate,” Fahmy said in an interview Monday prior to a speaking engagement at Carleton University in Ottawa.

“I panicked and I asked the ambassador to bring me the literature – the bill – and I read it in prison. I was worried.”

Fahmy, 41, was freed in September after spending more than 400 days behind bars on terrorism charges in Egypt after a court case that was the subject of broad international criticism.

Fahmy also said he will soon present the Liberal government with a proposed charter of rights on how to deal with citizens imprisoned abroad. He’s working on it with Amnesty International and his lawyers.

The new charter stresses something that didn’t happen in his case – direct leader-to-leader intervention to put pressure on a foreign government to force a Canadian prisoner’s release.

Source: Mohamed Fahmy Says Tory Law Made Him Fear Losing Canadian Citizenship

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As Trudeau takes power, judge adjourns citizenship court battle

2015/11/05 Leave a comment

No surprise as expected. New government under Minister McCallum committed to repeal revocation provisions:

As Justin Trudeau makes his way to Rideau Hall this morning, federal lawyers appear ready to act on one of his key campaign promises: scrapping the controversial Conservative law that gives Ottawa the power to strip convicted terrorists of their Canadian citizenship.

The Justice Department last week requested an indefinite adjournment in five high-profile court challenges targeting the Harper-era revocation law, saying federal lawyers assigned to the cases can’t move forward without direction from the incoming Trudeau Liberals. “Given the election outcome resulting in a new government, we are seeking instructions on next steps in this litigation,” says an Oct. 27 letter from senior counsel Angela Marinos, sent to the Federal Court office in Toronto. “Given that there will be a transition period after the Cabinet is sworn in, we cannot confirm, at this time, when those instructions will be conveyed.”

Lawyers for all sides consented to the adjournment request, and the order was rubber-stamped by Justice Russel Zinn on Monday—48 hours before Trudeau and his ministers were to be officially sworn in by Governor General David Johnston.

The adjournment essentially hits the pause button on a cluster of court cases that triggered intense debate during the election, giving the new PM and his advisors plenty of time to determine how best to repeal the Tory law, as promised. All parties to the court actions are scheduled to reconvene Dec. 9 for a case management conference in Toronto; by then, the Liberals’ specific intentions should be evident.

Source: As Trudeau takes power, judge adjourns citizenship court battle – Macleans.ca

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New law makes Canadian Jews second-class citizens

2015/10/16 Leave a comment

A number of Canadian Jews express worries regarding the revocation provisions of C-24 (Citizenship Act), provoking a bit of a debate between Jon Kay and Bernie Farber, the former discounting the arguments, the latter maintaining the possibility that this could occur (think of a dual Canadian-Israeli settler in the West Bank who launches a terrorist attack on Palestinians):

Many Canadians are not aware how far-reaching this law could be. The provisions that could banish dual citizens can also apply to Canadians who might be able to obtain a second citizenship. This would include Canadian-born citizens who are descendants of many countries that grant citizenship to children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren born abroad. Many countries, like Italy, Ireland, and India grant citizenship or easier access to citizenship to members of their diaspora.

Jews are second-class citizens under this law. That’s because the Law of Return gives an almost automatic right of Israeli residency and citizenship to any Jew. Every Canadian with citizenship or a right of citizenship abroad now has conditional rights to be a Canadian. It doesn’t even matter that you or your ancestral family have not lived in Israel for the past 2,000 years. Because a government official could argue that the Law of Return means you won’t be stateless if your Canadian citizenship is taken away, the second-class citizenship law applies to you.

It doesn’t matter that you might never commit one of the serious offences listed as grounds for revocation of citizenship – a list that the Prime Minister has said they will consider expanding. What matters is that all Canadians used to have the same citizenship rights, no matter what their origins.

Now we don’t. Canadians have now been divided into classes of citizens, — those with more rights, and those – overwhelmingly immigrants to Canada and their children and grandchildren – who have fewer rights. Those who can never ever lose their citizenship, and those of us – like Canadian Jews – who now could possibly have our citizenship stripped, according to law. That is not what Canada is about.

Until C-24 is erased from the books, the law now says that some Canadians belong, and some belong here less.

The idea that Jews, and other Canadians, are now covered by this law of banishment certainly casts a bitter taste to our refrain of “next year in Jerusalem.” All citizens should be alarmed that our government is attempting to create different rules for “old stock” Canadians and for the rest of us. That is unworthy of the Canada we love.

 Source: New law makes Canadian Jews second-class citizens | Toronto Star

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