Under section 51B of the
Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (the Act), the Minister for Home Affairs must table a report to the Parliament every 6 months on the number of notices of cessation of Australian citizenship given in that reporting period to dual nationals who have acted contrary to their allegiance to Australia.
The Act has 2 provisions that enable this cessation:
- section 36B (Citizenship cessation for certain conduct)
- section 36D (Citizenship cessation for certain convictions)
On 8 June 2022, the High Court of Australia handed judgement in
Alexander v Minister for Home Affairs & Commonwealth [2022] HCA 19, in which Mr Alexander challenged the constitutional validity of section 36B of the Act. The court found that section 36B of the Act is invalid.
Prior to the commencement of the
Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Cessation) Act 2020 on 18 September 2020, the Act had 3 provisions that enabled this cessation:
- section 33AA (Renunciation by conduct)
- section 35 (Service outside Australia in armed forces of an enemy country or a declared terrorist organisation)
- section 35A (Conviction for terrorism offences and certain other offences)
The former provisions came into law in 2015 through the
Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Act 2015.
