Begum V Home Secretary

''Begum v Home Secretary'' 021 UKSC 7 is the short name of three closely connected proceedings considered together in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom,
''R (on the application of Begum) v Special Immigration Appeals Commission; R (on the application of Begum) v Secretary of State for the Home Department; and Begum v Secretary of State for the Home Department'', concerning Shamima Begum, a woman born in the United Kingdom who at the age of 15 travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Her intention to return to England in 2019 resulted in a public debate about the handling of returning jihadists.

The case was heard on 23 and 24 November 2020, and in a judgment delivered on 26 February 2021 the Supreme Court unanimously found in favour of the Home Secretary on her appeal against an Order of the Court of Appeal that Begum should be given leave to enter the United Kingdom, which it overturned. It also dismissed Begum's applications for judicial review of the leave to enter decision and of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission's preliminary decision in a deprivation of citizenship appeal. It considered that Begum's challenge to her loss of British citizenship could only be stayed until such time as she is in a position to play an effective part in it without the safety of the public being compromised.

Facts

The daughter of Bangladeshi parents, Begum was born in London in 1999 and grew up in Bethnal Green, attending the Bethnal Green Academy. She held British citizenship under section 1 of the British Nationality Act 1981, as both her parents were settled in the United Kingdom when she was born. In a preliminary decision, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) found that as a matter of Bangladeshi nationality law she also holds Bangladeshi citizenship through her parents, as a result of section 5 of the Citizenship Act, 1951.

With two friends, Begum left Britain in February 2015 to go to Syria to join ISIS. A few days after her arrival there, she married Yago Riedijk, a Dutch-born ISIS fighter.Shamima Begum: 'We should live in Holland' says IS husband
BBC News, 3 March 2019, accessed 28 February 2021

On 13 February 2019, Anthony Loyd of ''The Times'' interviewed Begum at the al-Hawl refugee camp in Syria, with the newspaper calling this "a major scoop". On 19 February 2019, British Home Secretary Sajid Javid decided to use his power to deprive Begum of her United Kingdom citizenship, relying on information not to be made public on the grounds of national security. He later said she would never be allowed to return. She was nine months pregnant at the time, and gave birth to a son within hours. Begum gave an interview to Sky News the same day, claiming she was only a housewife. Her case turned into a cause célèbre, and it was argued on her behalf that she was a minor when she left home, so should not be held to the same standards of behaviour as those who were of full age. On 3 March, Begum's Dutch husband said he wished them to live in the Netherlands, but he was then in a Kurdish detention centre in Syria, and if he were to return to the Netherlands he could face imprisonment for belonging to a terrorist organisation.

On 15 April 2019, it was reported that Begum had been granted legal aid to fight the revocation of her British citizenship. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt described the Legal Aid Agency's decision as "very uncomfortable", but said that the United Kingdom was "a country that believes that people with limited means should have access to the resources of the state if they want to challenge the decisions the state has made about them".

On 3 May 2019 Begum applied for leave to enter Britain outside the Immigration Rules, under section 3 of the Immigration Act 1971 and section 113 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. She relied in part on Article 2 and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. On 13 June 2019, Javid refused this application, giving as reasons that Begum had not supplied a photograph of her face and a copy of her fingerprints and that the European Convention on Human Rights did not apply to her, or if it did there was no evidence that refusing her entry would breach her Convention rights. This further decision by Javid was later referred to as the "leave to enter decision".

In August 2019, under the Terrorism Act 2000, the Metropolitan Police asked the media organisations which had interviewed Begum, including the BBC
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