“Not everyone has the capacity in law to change his or her own domicile by their own act … [including] women who were married prior to 1974.” As the newspapers have been helpfully pointing out, you can inherit a foreign domicile from your father, but not from your mother; she does not count.
It can be an emotional issue for men too, not just something to do with where you pay taxes, to be chosen according to which will give you a smaller bill to pay. It can, potentially, affect divorce, custody of the children & your children’s future rights, and your rights to the ownership of property & inheritance in the country to which your family ‘belongs’, regardless of where you reside, ordinarily, permanently, de facto or de jure.
For most of us the question of domicile will never, probably, arise but when it does it really matters. The United Nations Charter of Human Rights guarantees a right to a nationality, but is silent on this subject.
The piece of intelligence which has surprised me most during this latest snafu is that Lord Paul has been, since last October a member of the Privy Council, presumably because he is also Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords.
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