The case examined the lawfulness of the existing procedure under section 19 of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, which provides for a power to revoke Irish citizenship from people who acquire Irish nationality.
Scale
The court last October found that that the scheme in section 19 for the revocation of naturalised citizenship was unconstitutional.
A further question then arose about the scale of that declaration.
The judgment says: “The process provided for in section 19 does not provide the procedural safeguards required to meet the high standards of natural justice applicable to a person facing such severe consequences as are at issue in these proceedings by reason of the absence of an impartial and independent decision maker.”
The finding concerns Ali Charaf Damache, an Algerian man who received notice that his citizenship was to be revoked because he pleaded guilty to terrorist offences.
Damache featured in the documentary Jihadi Jane and is serving a jail sentence in the US. He was extradited to the US from Spain in 2017, after he left Ireland.
Disloyalty to Irish State
In July 2018 he entered a guilty plea in a Philadelphia federal court, to a charge that, while resident in Ireland in or about 2010, he assisted an Islamist terrorist conspiracy.
He was sentenced to 15 years’ and gave consent to be deported to either Ireland or Algeria on his release.
The same month, the Minister for Justice told him that he intended to revoke his Irish citizenship on grounds of disloyalty to the Irish State.
Aspects
Following its judgment, the Supreme Court invited submissions from the parties, and from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) in its role as amicus curiae, as to whether the court should or should not preserve certain aspects of that provision.
The Commission exercised its amicus curiae (‘friend of the court’) powers, appearing before the court today.
The commission submitted to the court that it was essential that persons whose citizenship the Minister proposed to revoke were afforded fair procedures in that process as a matter of human rights law.
Striking down
IHREC said that the appropriate order from the Supreme Court would be an order striking down section 19 of the 1956 Act in its entirety.
It would then fall to the Oireachtas to enact legislation providing for the revocation of naturalisation including a procedure which meets the standards set out by the court in its October judgment.
Sinéad Gibney of IHREC said: “Citizenship is inextricably linked with a person’s identity and a range of civil rights, therefore the commission welcomes the opportunity to make additional submissions to the court on how this legislation can be brought into line with the Constitution.”