For example, while Pakistan and South Africa are currently Commonwealth countries, having left the Commonwealth in 1972 and 1961 respectively and did not join the Commonwealth until 1989 and 1994, their reintegration has not had the effect of restoring the rights of their nationals to a right of residence in the United Kingdom. Therefore, citizens of Pakistan and South Africa cannot have a right of residence in the United Kingdom due to their membership of a Commonwealth country, unless they are British citizens or citizens of another eligible Commonwealth country. However, there are a few exceptions. For example, Zimbabwe and The Gambia withdrew from the Commonwealth in 2003 and 2013 respectively, but for reasons of nationality they remain on the list of Commonwealth countries in Schedule 3 of the British Nationality Act 1981. Therefore, nationals of Zimbabwe and The Gambia may continue to have the right of residence in the United Kingdom as Commonwealth citizens, provided that they meet the other above conditions for the right of residence. If you are a British citizen, your British passport, which describes you as a British citizen, is proof that you have the right to reside in the United Kingdom. You may have a right of residence in the UK, either because of your parents or because you are or have been married to someone with a right of residence. GUCC, which fulfilled one of the following conditions, acquired a right of residence between 1973 and 1983. [5] All persons who became British citizens on or since 1 January 1983 have the right of residence in the British Isles.

The following two categories of persons had a right of residence:[4] “United Kingdom and the colonies” refers to the United Kingdom and the countries that Great Britain colonized. From January 1, 1949 to December 31, 1982, the main form of citizenship was citizenship of the United Kingdom and the colonies, and people were called “citizens of the United Kingdom and the colonies.” Citizens of the United Kingdom and the colonies who had the right of residence on 31 December 1982 automatically became British citizens under the British Nationality Act 1981. UK Visas and Immigration Guidance, entitled Nationality Instructions (UK and Colonies), published on 17 December 2007, lists the countries that are considered part of the United Kingdom and the colonies at different times. There is an official document called a “certificate of eligibility” which can serve as proof of possession of the right of residence for those who are not UK citizens but have the right of residence. The Home Office published an organisation chart on the GOV.UK website to help people assess whether a citizen of the United Kingdom and the colonies had the right of residence on 31 December 1982. This question can be used to assess whether your parent, adoptive parent or partner had a right of residence on 31 December 1982. If a citizen of the United Kingdom and the colonies had the right of residence on 31 December 1982, he is already a British citizen and therefore has the right of residence in the United Kingdom. If a person has the right of residence, he is always checked to determine whether he really has this right.

Section 1 of the 1971 Act qualifies this right by continuing “unless it is necessary after and in accordance with this Act to permit the determination of his right or it may otherwise be lawfully imposed on a person”. The Guidelines of the Ministry of home affairs published in March 2019 entitled “Right of Residence (RoA) – Applying for a Certificate of Right of Residence” stipulate that you must submit the following to your application for a certificate of eligibility: In the recent case R (Begum & Ors) v The Entry Clearance Officer, Dhaka [2019] EWHC 2196 (Admin), Ms Shamsun Begum claimed to have the right of residence, because her husband, originally a Bangladeshi national, had registered as a citizen of the United Kingdom and the colonies in 1972. She married him in 1975 and her case was that she was a Commonwealth citizen who had been a citizen of the Commonwealth before the 1st century. In January 1983, he married a British citizen who had the right to reside in the United Kingdom. She therefore argued that she should receive a certificate of eligibility. If you have the right to reside in the UK, it will not expire and your certificate of eligibility will not be able to “expire”. However, your Certificate of Eligibility will no longer be valid when your passport or travel document expires. When your passport or travel document containing your Certificate of Eligibility expires, you will need to apply for a new passport or travel document and apply for a new Certificate of Eligibility so that it can be affixed to your new passport or travel document. As we will see in a moment, the definition of who has the right of residence has changed over time. Essentially, the original definition introduced by the 1971 Act was replaced by a new version by the British Nationality Act 1981.

All UK citizens automatically have a right of residence in the UK. You generally do not have a right of residence if the person you were married to has another living or widowed woman who: The `right of residence` is the right to `live in the UK and to enter and leave the UK without permission or disability`. This right of residence is set out in section 1(1) of the Immigration Act 1971, the basic legislation governing existing UK immigration law. The Home Office expresses it differently in its guidelines for civil servants: the right of residence is a “complete exemption from the control of British immigration” (nationality: right of residence, version 4.0, 23 May 2018). 1 January 1983 means that this is the date of entry into force of the British Nationality Act 1981. That immediately raises the question of what right of residence existed on 31 December 1982 under Articles 2(1)(d) and 2(2) of the 1971 Law. We need to look at the Immigration Act of 1971 as it was at the time. Some Commonwealth citizens may also have a right of residence. No person born in 1983 or later can have a right of residence unless they are a British citizen. [5] A natural person may exercise his or her right of residence in the United Kingdom by more than one route.

In 1971, the entire system was rewritten, almost all remaining privileges of Commonwealth citizens were swept away, and the right of residence in Britain was institutionalized as the “right of residence”. Essentially, the Immigration Act of 1971 formalized the second-class citizenship system introduced in 1962, in which citizenship and the right to live in the country of citizenship were separated. However, the basis of discrimination between one citizen and another was no longer the authority to issue a passport. The 1971 law was based on a new concept of “patricianity” as terrible as it seems. Since Pakistan, South Africa, The Gambia and the Republic of Maldives have all ceased to be Commonwealth countries at some point, whether or not they were subsequently readmitted, their citizens cannot be eligible for the right of residence under paragraph 2(1)(b). It is possible that some people of the Windrush generation meet the requirements of the right of residence in the United Kingdom. However, the UK government has a separate application process for these people called the “Windrush program”. The government advises people who are eligible for the Windrush programme to apply for the Windrush programme instead of applying for a certificate of eligibility to prove that you have the right to reside in the UK (more on this below on the certificate of eligibility). Since the introduction of the EU settlement system, the terms “permanent resident status” and “pre-established status” have sometimes been used instead of “leave”. Permanent resident status is an informal permanent residence permit (ILR) label and pre-established status is an informal label for a limited residence permit.

Permanent resident status, permanent residence permit or whatever you want to call it do not confer a right of residence; A person with established status is subject to immigration control and can live, work and settle in the UK with permission, etc. The right of residence was limited to CUCCC and Commonwealth citizens, so some people with links to the UK were not eligible, even if they had a parent born in the UK. For example, a person born in the United States to a British-born CUCC mother and a non-Commonwealth father would not acquire a right of residence because he or she had neither CUCC status nor Commonwealth citizenship (CUCC status by descent could only be inherited from the father before 1983). [6] However, because of Canada`s membership in the Commonwealth, the same person would be granted a right of residence if he or she had been born in Canada, even though he or she had not been a cucc citizen or a British citizen since 1983. To learn more about the history of the right of residence, read the section “Citizenship Law and (De-)Colonization” in this article in our Knowledge Center. A Commonwealth citizen born before 1983 and remaining a citizen of the Commonwealth since 1 January 1983 would now have a right of residence if: The reasons why the right of residence exists are historical and date back to the British Nationality Act 1948. This bill was both conservative and radical; It created a new form of citizenship called Citizenship of the United Kingdom and the Colonies (CUKC), which stands alongside the citizenship of independent Commonwealth countries while maintaining the already existing British subject status of both groups.