Begum v Home Secretary

Begum v Home Secretary
Court	Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
Full case name	R (on the application of Begum) (Appellant) v Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Respondent); R (on the application of Begum) (Respondent) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Appellant); and Begum (Respondent) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Appellant)
Decided	26 February 2021
Citation(s)	[2021] UKSC 7
Transcript(s)	Judgment
Case history
Prior action(s)	Court of Appeal (King LJ, Flaux LJ, Singh LJ [2020] EWCA Civ 918
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	President Lord Reed, Deputy President Lord Hodge, Lady Black, Lord Lloyd-Jones and Lord Sales
Case opinions
The Supreme Court unanimously allows the Secretary of State's appeals in each of the proceedings, and dismisses Begum's cross-appeal. Her leave to enter appeal, her application for judicial review of the leave to enter decision, and her application for judicial review of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission's preliminary decision in the deprivation appeal, are all dismissed.

Begum v Home Secretary [2021] UKSC 7 is the short name of three closely connected proceedings considered together in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, R (on the application of Begum) v Special Immigration Appeals Commission; R (on the application of Begum) v Secretary of State for the Home Department; and Begum v Secretary of State for the Home Department, concerning Shamima Begum, a woman born in the United Kingdom who at the age of 15 travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Her intention to return to England in 2019 resulted in a public debate about the handling of returning jihadists.

The case was heard on 23 and 24 November 2020, and in a judgment delivered on 26 February 2021 the Supreme Court unanimously found in favour of the Home Secretary on her appeal against an Order of the Court of Appeal that Begum should be given leave to enter the United Kingdom, which it overturned.^[1] It also dismissed Begum's applications for judicial review of the leave to enter decision and of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission's preliminary decision in a deprivation of citizenship appeal. It considered that Begum's challenge to her loss of British citizenship could only be stayed until such time as she is in a position to play an effective part in it without the safety of the public being compromised.