Oppenheimer v Cattermole (Inspector of Taxes) [1976] AC 249 (UKHL)

Facts: A German law enacted during the Nazi regime deprived German Jews residing outside of Germany of their nationality, and took their property. Mr Oppenheimer was a German Jew who had come to England before WWII as a refugee. He was an English resident and in receipt of a pension paid by the German government. 

Issue: Whether or not Oppenheimer was entitled to relief of double taxation. This depended on whether Mr Oppenheimer was a dual nation of the UK and Germany, and hinged on whether or not he had been deprived of his nationality due to the Nazi law. 

Held: The House of Lords held that the German law constituted a gross violation of human rights, and therefore was not entitled to be recognised as a law at all. Therefore Oppenheimer had not been deprived of his German nationality by the law of 1941. The law of the state the nationality of which is in question governs nationality in both public and private international law; however, it must give way to considerations of forum public policy.

Principle: There will be no recognition in Australia of a foreign law depriving a particular racial group of nationality.

Held (Lord Cross): “[W]hat we are concerned with is legislation which takes away without compensation from a section of the citizen body singled out on racial grounds all her property on which the State passing the legislation can lay its hands on and, in addition deprives them of citizenship. To my mind a law of this sort constitutes so grave an infringement of human rights that the courts of this country ought to refuse to recognise it as law at all.”