United Kingdom - Passport & Nationality - British Citizenship by Registration - Minor 3(1) Romein

Section 3(1) of the British Nationality Act 1981 simply reads: "‘If while a person is a minor, an application for their registration as a British Citizen, the Secretary of State shall, if they see fit, cause them to be registered as such a Citizen".

The paragraph gives a broad discretion to the Home Secretary to register any child as a British Citizen. Policies have been developed by the Home Office to deal with situations where it is felt that such circumstances would be an appropriate use of the Home Secretary’s discretion. There are around thirty different application types. However, one particular route to registration exists where a parent could have been registered as a British citizen were it not for gender discrimination in the past. Following a recent Supreme Court ruling in the UK, many people who were born outside of the UK to a UK-born maternal grandfather can now register as a British citizen. If such an applicant is already in the UK, their children could be registered as British citizens.

So the broad criteria for this solution are:

a) The application must be made before the child’s 18th birthday;

b) A parent can register now as a British citizen, but was prevented from doing so because of gender discrimination in British nationality law in the past;

c) Both parents must consent to the application; AND

d) The child’s future lies with the UK.