13
22800/92.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O.885
Reference :-
13 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
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No. 96A. (GENERAL.)
LAW OFFICERS to HOME OFFICE.
CASE for the LAW OFFICERS.
The Law Officers are requested to advise the Secretary of State as to the status of children born outside the United Kingdom of an alien naturalized under the Act of 1870 in Great Britain, such children being born after the naturalization of their father.
The enactment to be referred to is 33 & 34 Vict., cap. 14, section 7, paragraph 3, describing the effect of a certificate of naturalization :—
"An alien to whom a certificate of naturalization is granted shall in the United Kingdom be entitled to all political and other rights, powers, and privileges, and be subject to all obligations, to which a natural-born British subject is entitled or subject in the United Kingdom, with this qualification, that he shall not, when within the limits of the foreign state of which he was a subject previously to obtaining his certificate of naturalization, be deemed to be a British subject unless he has ceased to be a subject of that state in pursuance of the laws thereof, or in pursuance of a Treaty to that effect."
This paragraph appears to be defectively, worded, since if the rights conferred on `the
person naturalized are limited to such rights as a natural-born British subject is entitled to in the United Kingdom, it is useless to append a qualification that the rights shall not operate in some place not in the United Kingdoin. It is believed that the words "in the United Kingdom" were inserted by inadvertence.
Section 10 (5) relates to the status of the children of a naturalized person, and provides that
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Where the father, or the mother being a widow, has obtained a certificate of naturalization in the United Kingdom, every child of such father or mother who during infancy has become resident with such father or mother in any part of the United Kingdom shall be deemed to be a naturalized British subject."
It is to be observed that, under the circumstances specified, the child has the status not of a natural-born British subject. but of a naturalized British subject.
The enactment, however, it seems probable (regard being had to the two previous paragraphs), relates only to children who were born before the naturalization of the naturalized person, not to those who were born subsequent to the naturalization.
If this view is correct the question then arises, what is the status of children born outside the United Kingdom aftor the naturalization of their father? The answer would seem to depend on tho conjoint effect of paragraph 3 (already set out) of section 7 of "The Naturalization Act, 1870," declaring the naturalized person to be entitled to all the political and other rights to which a natural-born British subject is entitled in the United Kingdom, and 4 Geo. II., cap. 21, which deals with the status of children of natural-born British subjects, enacting that:-
"All children born out of the Ligeance" that is out of the domain" of the Crown of England or which shall hereafter be born out of such Ligeance, whose fathers were or shall be natural-born subjects of the Crown of England or of Great Britain at the time of the birth of such children respectively, shall and may, by virtue of the said recited clause in the said Act of the seventh year of the reign of her said late Majesty and of this present Act, be adjudged and taken to be, and all such children are hereby declared to be, natural-born subjects of the Crown of Great Britain to all intents, constructions, and
purposes whatsoever,"
In the year 1860, the question arose as to the status of a child born in a foreign country of an alien naturalized under the earlier Act 7 & 8 Vict., cap. 66-such child being born after naturalization, and the parent being abroad at the time,* and the Law Officers advised the Secretary of State that such child would not answer the descrip- tion of a child of a natural-born British subject, and therefore would be an alien, and not a natural-born British subject.†
* See p. 9 of Report of Royal Commission q Naturalization (Parliamentary Paper, 1869 [C. 4109]), and gre opinion of Law Officers on April 1, 1884, No. 732.
† See Law Officers' Report, August 13, 1860, annexed.
71772.--2. 25.-1/93.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
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