In R (Johnson) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] UKSC 56, the UK Supreme Court unanimously decided that deporting an individual who would have had British citizenship but for the marital status of his or her parents is a violation of article 8 of ECHR (right to respect for private and family life)in conjunction with article 14 of that convention (general  prohibition of discrimination).

The case concerned Mr Johnson, born in Jamaica in 1985 to a British father and a Jamaican mother who were not legally married. The absence of marriage did not allow Mr Johnson to automatically obtain British citizenship through his father. In 1992, Mr Johnson was granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK, but has never formally registered as a British citizen. 

Mr Johnson was convicted of manslaughter in 2003 and sentenced to nine years in prison. Being a foreign national sentenced to over one year in prison, Mr Johnson was bound to be deported under the 2007 Borders Act, unless this would have breached his rights under the ECHR. The Supreme Court ruling is the judgment of the highest instance in this case.

 

For more details, read Aidan Wills’s UKSC blog and Colin Yeo’s analysis at Freemovement.org .

See our previous news item on cases of children in the UK who were not automatically granted citizenship at birth.

For details of current and past citizenship legislation in the UK, check out our country profile pages.