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foreign nationals, have no right of abode in the UK, while - if the existing
Rule is kept Commonwealth citizens whose sole connection was through a grandparent
would be admissible for settlement. This situation could be avoided by extending
the present UK-born grandparent Rule to include foreigners, but the number of US citizens (including those of Southern Irish descent), South Africans and others
who would stand to benefit would be very large, and we presume that Ministers
would not favour such a course.
12. A further criticism which has been made is that the Rule constitutes indirect
racial discrimination. This can be countered by the arguments that it is reasonable
to pay some regard to UK ancestry, and that the concession will in due course
benefit people of all races, including descendants of the many citizens of the UK
and Colonies of West Indian descent who have emigrated to the West Indies in the
last few years, and of those British-born Asian women who returned to India to join husbands during the last period (1969-74) when husbands were not generally
permitted to join wives in the UK for settlement. However, coloured immigration
to the United Kingdom only began on a significant scale in the late 1940s and as
the concession is not applicable to those below working age, there will be few
coloured people eligible for at least the next 15 years. For this reason inclusion
of abolition in a package of amendments to the Immigration Rules might provide a
useful defence to charges that the changes as a whole bore unfairly on the ethnic
minority communities. If the Rule is to go, it would clearly be preferable to
abolish it now, rather than in 10 or 15 years, when such a step could be interpreted
as a reaction to the imminent eligibility of significant numbers of Asians and
West Indians.
International obligations
13. It has not so far been suggested that the nature of the Rule is such as to
contravene any of the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, we have hitherto, on legal advice, taken the line that it did not extend
to claims based on illegitimate descent through the paternal line. There is a risk
of a successful petition against this interpretation, based on Article 14 of the
Convention, which states that: "the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth
in the Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any grounds such as...
social origin... birth or other status". Extension to those claiming illegitimate
descent through the paternal line would inevitably lead to some increase in numbers
though this might be small, in view of the difficulties of proving descent in
such cases.
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