Fatima Omar Ali Ahmed Al Hashimi, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

Article 1 of the Convention is primarily territorial. An overseas claimant must show an exceptional jurisdictional link, ordinarily through a state’s effective control of an area or its agents’ authority and control over the individual. Nationality, consular capacity, or a domestic decision affecting a person’s interests abroad does not suffice without control over the person.

The right of nationals abroad to enter their state under article 3(2) of Protocol No 4 is a particular exception. It does not make article 14 read with article 8 available to a person whose private life has been developed wholly outside the United Kingdom. Domestic courts may apply Strasbourg principles to new facts, but cannot create a new principle of Convention jurisdiction.

Ms Fatima Al Hashimi, a Somali national resident in the United Arab Emirates, sought registration as a British Overseas Citizen through her mother. The statutory scheme did not provide that route because, even on the counterfactual assumption that maternal descent had been treated like paternal descent, she would not have obtained a right of abode in the United Kingdom.

She contended that the refusal was discriminatory contrary to articles 14 and 8 of the Convention and sought a declaration of incompatibility under the Human Rights Act 1998. Lang J dismissed the judicial-review claim for want of Convention jurisdiction: [2026] EWHC 197 (Admin). The appeal concerned whether the United Kingdom had extraterritorial jurisdiction under article 1 in respect of that claim.

1. Appeal dismissed. Newey LJ, with whose reasons Andrews LJ and Moylan LJ agreed, held that the appellant had not crossed article 1’s jurisdictional threshold.

2. Convention jurisdiction is principally territorial. Extraterritorial jurisdiction is exceptional, although the recognised categories are not closed. The material criteria are effective control of an area and state-agent authority and control over an individual. The latter requires control over the person, rather than a decision which affects that person’s interests abroad.

3. The Secretary of State’s refusal to register the appellant as a British Overseas Citizen did not exercise authority or control over her. A passport might improve her employment, travel and access to consular assistance, but its refusal was a decision not to undertake control. Nationality itself is not an autonomous basis of Convention jurisdiction.

4. The court distinguished HF v France (2022) 75 EHRR 31. Article 3(2) of Protocol No 4 inherently protects nationals seeking to enter their state from abroad, and its special subject matter could therefore create a jurisdictional link. Article 14, whether read with article 8 or otherwise, has no equivalent character. Proceedings in domestic courts establish a jurisdictional link for article 6 in those proceedings, but do not establish jurisdiction for unrelated Convention rights.

5. There was no authority establishing jurisdiction in analogous circumstances. The court could apply Strasbourg law to a novel factual setting, but it could not create a new principle of Convention law. Andrews LJ added that an article 14 claim dependent on article 8 required jurisdiction over the underlying article 8 complaint; a private life developed wholly outside the United Kingdom supplied no relevant link.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Dismissed the appellant’s appeal and upheld the conclusion that the United Kingdom lacked jurisdiction under article 1 of the Convention: [2026] EWCA Civ 943 .
• High Court of Justice, King’s Bench Division, Administrative Court Lang J held that there was no jurisdiction to determine the articles 14 and 8 claim: [2026] EWHC 197 (Admin) .