Update on Begum vs UK Home Office
Photo by abdullah ali on Unsplash
It appears that Shamima Begum’s lawyers have decided not to go to the UK Supreme Court. They had until yesterday to decide to escalate her case to the highest court in the land following last Friday’s Court of Appeal judgement that the UK government did not unlawfully deprive Begum of her UK citizenship. The news is silent on their next steps. This makes astrological sense as Saturn, representing Begum’s legal team, is still obscured by solar light.
Pluto crowns the chart for last week’s hearing showing that Shamima Begum’s return to the UK is firmly prohibited. It also shows that the Court of Appeal’s ruling is irreversible. Begum, who is effectively stateless, remains in the al-Roj detention camp in north eastern Syria [1].
When the court said its ‘only task is to assess whether the deprivation decision was unlawful’ [2] it meant that the court’s remit is restricted to determining whether the Home Secretary’s decision to remove Begum’s British citizenship was properly made, not whether they agreed with it.
The proceedings were livestreamed because this case raises serious questions about the circumstances in which the UK government can rescind a person’s citizenship. Begum was born British in 1999.
Since the British Nationality Act 1981 came into effect on 1 January 1983 [3], being born in the UK is not enough to make you British. Your mother or father must also be a British citizen or ‘settled’ in the UK at the time of your birth. What legally counts as being ‘British’ has invited further challenges since Brexit [4].
Statute provides that the Home Secretary cannot deprive a person of British citizenship if it would render them stateless. Home Secretary Sajid Javid asserted that as Begum is the child of immigrant parents of Bangladeshi origin, she theoretically had access to Bangladeshi citizenship. Begum has never been to Bangladesh and the country had already refused to have her. Former Justice of the Supreme Court Jonathan Sumption described Javid’s argument as a ‘legal fiction’ adding, ‘children who make a terrible mistake are surely redeemable. But statelessness is for ever’ [5].
The Home Secretary’s decision on Begum’s citizenship sets a chilling precedent for any citizen whose parents are not born in the UK to have their British citizenship revoked as a purely legal manoeuvre, with no practical application [6].
Sajid Javid deemed Begum to be a risk to national security when he took away her British citizenship from her. In the Court of Appeal, Begum's lawyers argued she was groomed to join Isis group as a minor. Ten days after she arrived in Raqqa, Syria as a 15 year-old, Begum was married to Yago Riedijk, a Dutch Muslim convert. They had three children - a one-year-old girl, a three-month-old boy and a newborn son - all of whom died from malnourishment or disease [7]. The Moon’s separating square from Uranus describes how harshly and abruptly the childhoods of Begum and her offspring ended. The Moon’s placement on the fifth house cusp emphasises the childhood theme. This whole story stems from a misguided childhood decision which is now coming back to haunt Begum as a 24 year-old, as shown by the Moon’s applying opposition to Mercury, her significator.
It has been said that a civilised country would not have made Shamima Begum stateless [8]. The chart for the Court of Appeal hearing confirms that Shamima Beguma was highly unlikely to get justice. Jupiter, the astrological significator for justice, resides in the chart’s darkest house and has no dignity. The natural significator for truth, the Sun, is besieged by Saturn and an afflicted Mercury, and also lacks dignity despite residing in the house of freedom. The house ruling the court judgement contains elevated, angular Pluto with Venus and Mars, rulers of the houses of slavery and imprisonment.
As Mercury and Saturn conjoined the Sun last Wednesday, Begum’s excellent legal team probably surrendered to the hard truth of this situation. The Court of Appeal’s constitutionally legitimate refusal to pronounce on matters of public policy would very likely be upheld by the Supreme Court. Begum’s lawyers have been doing their very best to seek redress for what are essentially political problems via judicial means. The judiciary are not supposed to pronounce on matters that fall within Parliament’s realm of responsibility. Saturn represents the judges as well Begum’s lawyers. All their hands are tied. It is the Home Secretary’s job to resolve Begum’s predicament, as shown by Jupiter’s disposition of Mercury and Saturn. Further legislation, which has to be initiated in and then passed by Parliament, is the only way to ensure that no-one else risks being stripped of their British status on spurious grounds.
