ok....when he..Paul (edited for privacy) was younger he got into debt and has been paying his debts off with a scheme worked out with the British government there....he tried to ask to come here and sign an agreement to continue paying his debts but the government there will not let him leave the country or even have a passport no matter how hard he tried to sort it out with the bank and government.......he wants to come here and marry me and live but they say he isn't allowed until his debts are cleared which will be at least eight years.ihave children so moving there is out of the question as my ex husband wont allow it..it is ruining our life and has me feeling like giving up on life....we cant wait 8 years .is there no wy it can be resolved so he can come here and mary me while still paying the British government back ...even with a signed direct debit from his bank account.....please help we are desperate to be together and he is honourable and still wants to pay your goernment his debt..please help.thanx
Optional Information: Barrack Heights, Australia Already Tried: my boyfriend has tried to work it out with the banks and British government, but they have refused his request for a passport and an arangement to pay his English debts while living here with me in Australia....we want to get married but he wont be debt free for 8 years we cant wait that long it will break us up and I cant live there as I share custody with my ex husband of our son and he wont allow me to take him there.......and do we have to be married staight away b4 he leaves England...or an he come if you can find a solution 4 us and be married in Australia....or is marraige irrelevant to him coming?.thankyou
Dear Suzi,
From the research I have done, the issuing of passports is subject to a very vague and undefined area of UK law. The only source of legal authority to refuse British Citizen a passport is the Royal Prerogative, a set of historic powers enjoyed by the monarchy which have been passed to politicians. However, there have been cases where the intervention of a member of parliament has led to this perogative being challenged. In one case, the agency had denied a 22-year-old man from Kimnel Bay in Conwy a passport because he could not find details which could only be supplied by his mother. Apparently, the intervention of Tory MP XXXXX XXXXX led to the passport being secured. This might be one strategy which you could try - your boyfriend could call his local MP and explain the situation. It is very unusual for a full citizen to be denied a passport to leave their home country.
There is detailed information about the requirements for entry into Australia as a defacto here. If you can prove a sufficiently close relationship that has lasted more than one year you should be able to get in. :
http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/35relationship.htm
I hope that this helps. Please do not hesitate to contact me about this.
Regards,
XXXXX XXXXX
the answer you gave gives no indication of what we can do....only here-say....which we already knew.....i want to know if a person has committed to pay the government/ban back previous debts..can he still be issued with a passport and the banks have told him and the government there they wont give him passport or grant leave from the country util his debts are paid.can a schemem be re-worked ....so the debts can be paid whilst allowing him 2 leave the country and leve here with me....a local mp is useless...i told u has already sen his solicitor and gov/bank....yet they have refused to re-work th eplan he is on now to pay off his debts,the answer you gave is not helpfull......or gives no idea as to what we can do next....sorry.....we need real concrete answers about the government/bank debts he has an dis paying.....is it legally viable to assume he has a right to be renegotiate his payment scheme with the british government.or as it is a legally binding document with the gov.....can ity be negaotiated or does he have no legal right to ecpect a re working of his debt scheme?
Dear Suzi,Yes, I can understand your frustration. Before I looked into this, I would have thought it would be a plain fact that as a British Citizen you have an unfettered right to leave the country if you wished. However, from a legal perspective the major problem is that in the UK there is no legal right to a passport, it is a privilege which can be revoked at the government's discretion. Naturally, anything can be negotiated where there is a choice involved, but the law makes it the choice of the government to grant a passport and not the choice of the citizen to obtain one. It was this reason that I suggested an attempt at a political avenue rather than a legal one. The only possibility I can think of from my understanding of the law is that there has been some speculation that the refusal to grant a passport is in fact a violation of a human right, which is the right to leave one's own country found in Article 12(2) of the International Covenant on Civil Political Rights and Article 13(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The United Kingdom has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and technically is bound by its terms. However, it has not passed into domestic legislation and although the European Convention on HUman Rights has been enancted into British law, the part which grants the right to leave ones own country has not. In the UK, if your human rights have been violated, you generally have three options: