Fast-track Citizenship

[ppron747]

Is there such a waiver possible under the present BNA1981 with respect to residency periods?

As you will know, naturalisation applicants are normally expected not to be outside UK for more than 450 days in the five year residence requirement, and this is one area where the Home Secretary has a great deal of flexibility - he can ignore absences exceeding the 450 day total. But he cannot dispense with the residence requirement altogether; the applicant must have been in UK on a day exactly five years before the application is submitted.

I think the point is that although there is discretion, the Home Secretary has to be very careful in exercising it. There are no secrets in this day and age, and the tendency for people to apply for judicial review is very strong. If he were to use his discretion to waive an excessive amount of the residence requirement, and naturalise some public figure, it would surely get out, and he would face judicial review applications from the dozens/hundreds of "ordinary" people whose applications had been refused because he'd declined to use his discretion in their cases.

[JAJ]

I think the point is that although there is discretion, the Home Secretary has to be very careful in exercising it. There are no secrets in this day and age, and the tendency for people to apply for judicial review is very strong. If he were to use his discretion to waive an excessive amount of the residence requirement, and naturalise some public figure, it would surely get out, and he would face judicial review applications from the dozens/hundreds of "ordinary" people whose applications had been refused because he'd declined to use his discretion in their cases.

I would suggest that it would probably be much more difficult politically to repeat the "Zola" s3(1) registration now compared to 1984, as there is much more awareness out there of what the policies really are. No-one other than experts could easily look up the Nationality Instructions then.

Incidentally, and off-topic, Zola became a British citizen "by descent" as the rule is that if someone is registered under s3(1) and they have a British parent at the time of birth, they become British "by descent". Hence, Zola's British citizenship has most likely not been passed on to her children born in South Africa.

A person registered as British under s3(1) becomes British "otherwise than by descent" if they don't have a British parent at time of birth.

Also, to put the "Zola" incident in context, at the time South Africa was not a Commonwealth member so those with British grandparents were not only ineligible for British citizenship, but they were also ineligible for the Ancestry Visa. It was also the time when an increasing number of South Africans became interested in emigration.