‘Omnibus liberis hominibus’: The Rights of Refugees, Migrants and Exiles

Abstract

The starting point of Alison Harvey’s analysis is an important provision from Magna Carta which mentions the right not to be exiled. It paved the way for a fairly generous type of legislation in the country under which “all merchants could enter or leave England unharmed and without fear” until 1969. The 1960s were generally not a good period for Human Rights and Civil Liberties. Indeed, in 1962 a distinction was made under “the shameful Act” between citizens of the United Kingdom and people from the former British colonies – until then, they benefited from the same quality and rights of British citizenship. In the same way, before 2006, it was possible to challenge one’s deprivation of British citizenship, yet the legislation changed which made it possible under UK law to make people stateless in spite of the 2014 UN campaign against statelessness. Today, Commonwealth citizens under the British Nationality Act 1981 Schedule 3 – and the so-called “aliens” – with a distinction between “friendly aliens” and "unfriendly aliens” – are not considered as British citizens.