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Key decisions

  • Re Gallagher [2018] HCA 17
  • Collins v The Queen [2018] HCA 18
  • DWN027 v The Republic of Nauru [2018] HCA 20
  • EMP144 v The Republic of Nauru [2018] HCA 21

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW

Citizenship – section 44(i)

In Re Gallagher [2018] HCA 17 (9 May 2018) the High Court held that Senator Katy Gallagher had been ineligible when she stood for election as a Senator in May 2016.

Section 44(i) of the Constitution provides that a person shall be incapable of being chosen as a Senator or Member of the House of Representatives if they are a ‘subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power’. In Re Canavan [2017] HCA 45 the High Court accepted that the s 44(i) rule is subject to a qualification – a ‘constitutional imperative’ – that the ‘Australian citizen not be irremediably prevented by foreign law from participation in representative government’. The qualification applies where the person has taken all steps reasonably required by the foreign law to renounce their foreign citizenship.

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