Derry woman is British until she renounces citizenship, tribunal told
Lawyer in Emma DeSouza’s case says Belfast Agreement does not overrule British Nationality Act
A Belfast immigration tribunal was told on Tuesday that because a Derry woman did not renounce her British citizenship she therefore remained British, even though she identifies as Irish.
The tribunal was also told that the 1998 Belfast Agreement which allowed people in Northern Ireland to identify as Irish, British or both did not override the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Under the 1981 act, according to a lawyer for the British Home Office, a person born in Northern Ireland to at least one parent who had British citizenship must be identified as British.
The British Home Office at an Upper Tribunal in Belfast is appealing a First-Tier Tribunal decision which ruled in favour of Emma DeSouza, who is from Magherafelt in Co Derry.
Ms DeSouza applied for a residence card for her US-born husband Jake in December 2015. She made the application under her Irish passport. The couple married in Belfast in July 2015.
The Home Office however rejected the application deeming that Ms DeSouza was British, notwithstanding her argument that she never held a British passport.
The Home Office requested Ms DeSouza either reapply as a British citizen or renounce her British citizenship to apply as an Irish citizen.
Ms DeSouza contested that decision, citing how the Belfast Agreement allowed her to identify as Irish, British or both.
She won her appeal, but the Home Office and its minister Priti Patel are challenging that decision at the Upper Tribunal.
Tony McGleenan, QC, for the Home Office contended that the First-Tier judge made a “fundamental and egregious error of law” in ruling that the Belfast Agreement of 1998 took precedence over the British Nationality Act of 1981.
He argued that under the nationality act Ms DeSouza held British citizenship from birth. He said it was not disputed that her father was a British citizen at the time of her birth and that she therefore acquired British citizenship at birth.
