LAHORE, July 27: A Supreme Court lawyer has drawn attention of the chief justice of Pakistan towards a lacuna (benefit) the dual nationals are enjoying as they merely surrender their foreign passports on the pretext of renunciation of their dual citizenship.

“Such people can invoke their UK citizenship by depositing £753 along with submission of ‘Resumption of Citizenship form,” Advocate Mubeenuddin Qazi says in a letter to the CJP.

The letter further says since the dual nationals still enjoy the possibility of resumption of citizenship, the object and purpose behind the SC judgments on dual nationality have not been achieved. The aim was “to guard against the illegal and corrupt practice involving mis-declaration/deceptive declarations on the basis of the so-called surrender of the UK citizenship to become eligible to be elected or chosen as a member of parliament in Pakistan.”It says grant of citizenship in the UK requires mandatory completion of five-year status as Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) and is considered a route to naturalization/citizenship, therefore, obtaining ILR means that the holder of ILR has already adopted the route and applied for the process for obtaining citizenship, which only allows benefit of getting a British passport.

“To achieve the objective of the judgments of the SC as well as the object and purposes of the provisions of Article 63(1)(c) of the Constitution, a declaration would be required to the effect that the persons holding ILR status fall within the category of disqualification of acquiring citizenship of a foreign country in terms of the provisions of Article 63(1)(c) of the Constitution, unless and until such persons get their ILR status cancelled.”

It says under the UK Immigration Law and Rules, on renouncement of citizenship, the settlement status known as “ILR” is not affected, meaning thereby that all rights of a citizen including even contesting election for British Parliament [under Section 18 of the Electoral Administration Act, 2006] and getting financial, social and housing benefits etc., as well as automatic grant of British Nationality to their children on their birth, remain intact.

“Only they have to surrender the British passport but there is no restriction on their entry to the UK and they can freely travel to and from the UK on their Pakistani Passport with ILR stamp,” it says.

PPP South Punjab Vice-President Haider Zaman Qureshi has urged the apex court to ensure that all those announcing surrender of their UK citizenship are not merely “surrendering the UK passport.”

He says British citizen Chaudhry Sarwar, who is likely to be a new Punjab governor, may surrender his British passport only. He has asked the PML-N leadership not to deprive south Punjab of giving representation in the government. “The new governor should be from the south,” he demanded.