My Lords, I have made a number of speeches on this subject at different stages of the Bill and I do not want to take too much of the House’s time. I welcome the idea of an independent reviewer being involved, but I say to the Minister that it is not enough. As he will see, my name is on a number of the amendments that were referred to by my noble friend Lady Lister. I, too, am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is really the course that I would urge this House to take.
The whole idea of making people stateless is unsupportable as a measure, but that fact does not place barriers in the way of the Government in their efforts to deal with terrorism. Terrorism is a serious threat nationally and internationally, and the Government must act in the interests of our safety. Opponents of this move, of whom I am one, are not objecting to removing citizenship from people who have two passports. If someone already has dual nationality—and not just the possibility of being able to get it from somewhere else because they have a father or grandfather who is of a different nationality—then on the right evidence and with due process there is no reason why citizenship cannot be removed from someone whose conduct has been shown to be a threat to our national security. The Supreme Court recently did precisely that in relation to a Pakistani-British family living mainly in Pakistan.
However, I want to remind this House why the idea of rendering someone stateless is so repugnant. After the horrors of the Second World War, the international community had the opportunity of reflecting on the whole notion of the Wandering Jew—as though “wandering” was a voluntary condition—and the idea of what it meant to have no secure home and of living with the mental torture of insecurity. The international community was conscious of the many other people forced to live lives of uncertainty—because it is a weapon used by tyrants and dictators—knowing that they could be ousted at any moment because of the instability of their status. We were all alert to how such persons lacked full rights if they were rendered stateless, and that was why the convention to end statelessness came into being. Britain was one of the countries at the forefront of such moves, which is why we have been a beacon in relation to this issue.
It is interesting that Germany, reviewing its own conduct in relation to statelessness after the Second World War, has made it part of its constitutional obligations that it will never remove citizenship once it is granted. The United States, too—which, of course, became a haven for those seeking sanctuary—never removes citizenship once it is granted and believes strongly that people should not be rendered stateless.
Of course, if you are not a citizen of anywhere, you cannot have the rights that citizenships confers on you—the very right to have rights, as has been mentioned already. The presumption should always be that if you commit crime you should be tried and jailed, and that there are steps that can be taken to deal with criminality and behaviour that is a threat to states. But there is also a presumption that if something happens to you abroad you can insist on contact being made with your embassy or consulate so that your rights can be asserted. It is not just about providing protection, it is about seeking to make everyone subject to the rule of law—the thing that Britain is renowned for. The presumption should always be that law is involved in these processes.
I have repeatedly told the story of Mahdi Hashi, who had his citizenship removed while in Somalia. Two other persons from whom Britain had removed citizenship were droned—killed by the use of drones—in Somalia. We should reflect on that; it was evidence given to the Joint Committee on Human Rights by the
UN rapporteur on counterterrorism only a week or so ago. Mahdi Hashi was advised through his parents of having lost his citizenship and that he had a month to appeal. Somalia has no British embassy. He travelled to Djibouti, where he was picked up by the secret police. On saying that he was British, he was told that inquiries had been made and that Britain was denying any obligations towards him. We washed our hands of him—Pontius Pilate lives on.
Mahdi Hashi was interrogated at length—no lawyers, no court processes. He was then handed over to the CIA and further interrogated—no lawyers, no court processes. He had a hood put on his head and was transported to the United States of America—no extradition processes. This was essentially another rendition. But Britain can now claim that we were not complicit because he was not our citizen. Is that the purpose of this change of law, that we might be able to do things that make people vulnerable and deny them their rights, creating yet more black holes where no law obtains but where we cannot be accused of complicity?
We in Britain have always claimed our commitment to the rule of law; indeed, we like to think of ourselves as having parented its existence. You might ask: is this man, who is now sitting in a jail in New York, a bad guy? I cannot tell you. No evidence is in the public domain. But it matters not whether he is a bad guy—that is the important thing to have in mind. We are supposed to believe in due process, the rule of law and international human rights. By making him stateless, we stripped him of the safeguards that any human being should expect. That is not how we normally behave. That is not an acceptable way for a civilised nation to behave.
This is an issue of profound principle and much more care needs to be taken than we currently see in considering the implications of this in terms of what message we are sending to the world, what the position is with regard to international law, what it means to make someone stateless, and what other states, where such persons end up, might feel about our having made such persons stateless. All those matters should persuade us that there should be a committee set up and that this needs much further reflection, because there are principles involved that should be seriously considered by us all because it matters about the nation that we live in.