Author Archives: Shami Chakrabarti

Shami Chakrabarti

The Independent View: Removing the ‘right to have rights’

By Shami Chakrabarti | Tue 15th April 2014 - 12:33 pm

LibertyWhile the Commons grappled with the latest wave of backbench Euroscepticism, quietly and without fanfare the Home Secretary introduced an amendment to the Immigration Bill which strikes at the heart of our national conscience.

The impetus for this power came not from the urgent necessity of fighting terrorism, but is rather the result of a six year legal battle. In October last year, the Supreme Court held that the executive could not remove British nationality from an individual where to do so would render him stateless.  A frustrated Home Secretary now seeks a broad, discretionary power to remove what Hannah Arendt so memorably described as “the right to have rights”.

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Posted in The Independent View | Tagged , , , and | 13 Comments
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