Shamima Begum was a 15-year-old girl when she last set foot in Britain, in 2015. If the judgment of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) stands, Ms Begum will probably never return. Siac, the tribunal that hears immigration cases involving national security issues, upheld the right of the home secretary – Sajid Javid in 2019 – to strip her of UK citizenship because her presence was not “conducive to the public good”.
Many people will think this is a good thing. But Ms Begum makes a strong case that she was lured as a child to be a bride for Islamic State fighters in Syria. She went on to have three children, all of whom died. She lives now in limbo, stateless and detained in a Syrian camp. Her argument that she was not just groomed but trafficked ought to be taken seriously – not least after MPs found that systemic failures by UK public bodies enabled such a trade.
Other foreign governments have brought back families of IS terrorists, recognising their constitutional rights as well as implicitly admitting that such people are their responsibility. This mature behaviour is apparently too much to ask for from Britain’s government, which relies on an electoral strategy of demonisation and fearmongering. Ms Begum’s case reveals that the Tories view the law not as a fundamental part of the UK’s constitutional system, but as an unnecessary obstacle to the exercise of executive power.
It was no accident that Siac’s judges did not consider Ms Begum’s lived experience when deciding her case. They had been confined by the supreme court to only considering Ms Begum’s appeal in terms of whether the process had been fair and reasonable, rather than let judges try the case again. No evidence, apparently, could be used to overturn the home secretary’s decision, made when rightwing press agitation was at fever pitch. As Siac notes: “From the moment the news story broke, this decision would have to be made quickly. Political rather than national security factors drove the outcome.”
The supreme court ought to be able to hold governments to account. But since the landslide election of 2019 it has been cowed. An analysis of data by Lewis Graham, of the University of Oxford, suggests a trend, under the leadership of Lord Reed, towards a more “executive-minded” supreme court, at least in terms of a tendency to reject human rights claims and to side with public authorities. Siac also heard much of the evidence in closed session. Transparency in judicial proceedings is essential for building trust in decisions. Yet there was nothing in open session to allay concerns, said Siac, that “many right-thinking people in this country’s Muslim communities (and beyond) feel that they are being treated as second-class citizens, and/or that their welcome is somehow contingent”.
Parliamentary sovereignty is enhanced by government being bound by law, not just by popular sentiment. Judges are right to be wary of being at the centre of the national conversation. Ms Begum’s case was never going to be easy. Security challenges change and societies move on. It cannot be right for the home secretary’s decision to be shielded from effective legal scrutiny for ever.
