Suchergebnisse

Increasing numbers of people are travelling from Australia and other countries to Iraq and Syria to fight along side jihadi and rebel groups such as ISIS. The governments of Australia and other countries are concerned that foreign fighters will return to their home country and carry out terror attacks, or radicalize and inspire others to carry out attacks or become foreign fighters. This has prompted the introducing and passing of legislation which give governments the power to strip individuals of their citizenship as a means to prevent the return of citizens fighting in foreign wars. The Australian Parliament has passed legislation – named Allegiance to Australia - which provides for a dual citizens to have their Australian citizenship revoked if they engage in terrorist-related activity. Similar legislation is being introduced in Canada titled Strengthening Canadian Citizenship, and has been present and practiced in the UK for a number of years with a recent amendment: 2014 Immigration Act. The Bills in Australia and the UK allow for citizenship to be revoked without a court conviction. Grounds for revocation may also extend to allegation or suspicion of being involved in terrorism overseas. Legislation to revoke citizenship has had a mixed response among different stakeholders. Legal experts have charged that the laws do not comply with domestic or constitutional law. Human rights groups have alleged that the bill violates international conventions and denies justice to individuals such as the right to presumption of innocence. Others raise practical concerns, such as the sufficiency of information required prior to revoking citizenship. The lack of adequate guards against statelessness is also a concern for some parties. The legislation appears popular among the public in Australia but controversial in Canada. Allegiance to Australia has received cross-party political support, where as Canada's main opposition party have pledged to revoke Strengthening Canadian Citizenship. There a few risks for political parties in continuing to support the legislation in Australia as it enjoys near-universal support. However the Australian policy community should be aware of the potential for further policy which punishes individuals based on suspicion of misconduct, and where the decision to issue punishment does not take place in a court, but based on interpretable information.