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Laws stripping dual nationals of citizenship must be repealed
The federal government should repeal laws that strip Australian dual nationals of their citizenship and place them at an unacceptable risk of statelessness, family separation and indefinite detention, argues the Human Rights Law Centre.
Jerome Doraisamy
In its submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which is currently reviewing amendments to the Australian Citizenship Act that allow the Minister for Home Affairs to remove citizenship from dual nationals, HRLC argued that although Australia has the power to determine who its nationals are, it must not use that power arbitrarily or in such a way that leaves people stateless.
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“The citizenship-stripping provisions are excessive, unreasonable and lack effective safeguards. Citizenship can be lost for engaging in lower level criminal conduct that was never intended to trigger such a severe consequence, and in some circumstances, without a court or independent determining that the relevant conduct occurred,” posited HRLC legal director Emily Howie (pictured).
“This means people can have their citizenship removed based on false information, in a scheme with insufficient opportunities to rectify incorrect decisions.”
The loss of Australian citizenship means, Ms Howie continued, the loss of the right to vote, to run for office and to enter and remain in Australia.
Once citizenship is lost, she noted, “people are likely to become subject to Australia’s immigration law and are unlikely to be allowed to remain in or return to Australia”.
“The consequences of citizenship removal are devastating. Stripping a person’s citizenship impacts on their whole life. It can separate families, and wrong decisions could leave a person stateless and indefinitely detained,” Ms Howie outlined.
“Unfortunately, the law doesn’t properly protect people from mistakes at a bureaucratic level, with secretive decision-making processes and inadequate opportunities to review adverse decisions. Worse still, children as young as 10 can have their citizenship removed and face the same fate.”
Under the provisions, citizenship can be stripped from dual nationals who fight for an enemy force or terrorist organisation, engage in certain proscribed criminal conduct or are convicted of certain offences, HRLC said in a statement.
“These laws were introduced in order to protect the community and uphold the value of allegiance to Australia, but they’re drafted so broadly that people can lose their citizenship for less serious conduct that doesn’t endanger the community or bear on allegiance at all,” Ms Howie said.
The citizenship-stripping provisions were introduced in 2015, and since then, at least one person’s citizenship has been revoked based on an incorrect assumption of dual nationality: Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton revoked Neil Prakash’s Australian citizenship, even though Prakash did not have Fijian citizenship, HRLC recounted.
“As we’ve learnt from Parliament’s section 44 debacle, it’s difficult and complex to determine whether a person is a dual citizen. The law fails to establish a scheme that would ensure, at the very least, that a person is in fact a dual national before they lose their citizenship. The provisions are fatally flawed and ought to be repealed,” Ms Howie concluded.
