An extract from a report produced in September 1972 by the Law Officers Department of the Home Office outlining the British government’s responsibility to accept the Ugandan Asians. (FCO 53/285)
Transcript
Second Draft.
21/09/1972
Obligation to accept citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies on Expulsion.
Introduction.
1.This note sets out the liabilities, and potential liabilities, of the United Kingdom to accept for settlement here citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies in the event of their expulsion from their place of residence.
Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies holding no other citizenship and possessing or being eligible for United Kingdom Passports.
2. If citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, having been expelled from their country of residence, have nowhere else to go, we have a clear obligation in international law, at least to third countries, to admit them to the United Kingdom (notwithstanding that they are subject to control under the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 and are not patrial under the Immigration Act 1971) or to secure their admission to a colony or other dependant territory.
The number of people in this category are believed to total about 300,000. About half are in East Africa, the remainder being mostly in Malaysia and Singapore.
There is no safe-guarding action that we could take which was not liable to result in serious international repercussions. Since people in this category possess no other citizenship they could not be deprived of our citizenship without being rendered stateless. This would be contrary to the terms of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness but that Convention, though ratified by the United Kingdom, is not yet in force and so creates no binding international obligation. It is likely that the European Commission on Human Rights would regard such action as a breach of the European Human Rights Convention.