British Citizenship Application Refusals: Publication of Reasons (Hansard, 12 January 1998)

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn

Yes. This Government believe in greater openness in public administration, as we showed when we published the White Paper on the Freedom of Information Act on 11 December 1997. This openness is especially necessary where our decisions affect the rights of individuals. We have long been 165WA unhappy with the practice of not giving reasons when refusing some applications for British citizenship, and relying upon Section 44(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981 as the authority for not doing so. Since taking office in May, we have considered this matter in considerable detail. My right honourable friend is required to give reasons in a wide range of immigration cases and he can see no persuasive argument why his decisions involving the refusal of British citizenship should not similarly be open to public scrutiny. He has therefore decided as a matter of principle that henceforth reasons should he given in such cases.

One immediate consequence of this decision concerns the appeal to the House of Lords from the Court of Appeal in the cases of R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Mohamed Abdel Moneim Fayed and ex parte Ali Fayed regarding the application of Section 44(2) of the 1981 Act. My right honourable friend instructed the Treasury Solicitor on 22 December 1997 that these appeals should be withdrawn. The effect of this is that the judgment of the Court of Appeal quashing the decisions made in 1995 to refuse these two applications now stands.

It will now fall to my right honourable friend to decide the applications on Mohamed and Ali Fayed, on their merits, and he cannot comment upon them further at this stage. He also makes clear that, in reaching the decision on principle that reasons should be given in citizenship cases, he has not considered any of the original papers in the Fayeds' application.