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3 Eur. J. Migration & L. 271 (2001)
British Nationals under Community Law: The Kaur Case

handle is hein.journals/ejml3 and id is 279 raw text is: European Journal of Migration and Law 3: 271-278, 2001.            271
© 2001 Kluwer Law International. Printed in the Netherlands.
British Nationals under Community Law: The Kaur Case
PRAKASH SHAH*
ECJ, judgment of 20 February 2001, Case C-192/99 The Queen v Secretary
of State for the Home Department, ex parte: Manjit Kaur.
The exercise of the Community freedoms relating to workers, services,
establishment as well as residence rights relating to students, independent
and retired persons has been premised upon a person holding the nationality
of a Member State of the European Community. This precondition has, since
the Treaty on European Union, been transposed to the effective exercise of
citizenship of the Union. It has normally been presupposed that one should
look to the nationality or citizenship law of a particular member state to
decide the question whether a person may exercise Community freedoms or,
in the new scenario, citizenship of the Union.' However, this principle by
itself does not solve the problem of deciding who would be a UK national
for EU purposes. This is because UK nationality has for several decades now
been split into several sub-citizenships and also because holders of only some
of these statuses have been declared by the UK government to be eligible to
exercise rights of EU citizenship. Under the last comprehensive statute on
UK nationality law, the British Nationality Act 1981, one can discern five
different statuses: British citizens, British Dependent Territories citizens,
British Overseas citizens, British subjects and British protected persons.
Another status of British Nationals (Overseas) was added by the Hong Kong
Act 1985 and the Hong Kong (British Nationality) Order 1986.2 This note
summarises the decision of the ECJ concerning a British Overseas citizen
(BOC), Case C-192/99 R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex
parte Manjit Kaur, given on 20 February 2001. While concerning a BOC,
* University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.
See, for example, Bruno Nascimbene (1996): 'Introduction'. In: Bruno Nascimbene (ed.):
Nationality laws in the European Union. Milan: Giuffr6 Editore, pp. 1-19 at p. 4.
2 The 1986 Order also anticipates the creation of more British Overseas citizens in case
of potential statelessness as a result of the transfer of Hong Kong to the Peoples Republic of
China.

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