DeSouza case summary and timeline

The DeSouza case began as an immigration case but has morphed into a test of the constitutional nature of the Good Friday Agreement

I am an Irish citizen born in Northern Ireland who has never held a British passport. I obtained my first Irish passport in 2009 and identify as exclusively Irish - not British.

The Good Friday Agreement birthright provisions allow the people of Northern Ireland to identify and be accepted as Irish or British or both.

In 2015 I married my US born husband in Belfast and applied for an EEA residence card shortly thereafter.

My husband Jake DSouza applied for an EEA residence card as the spouse of an EU national. The appropriate application for all EU citizens resident in the United Kingdom.

In 2016 the British Home Office refused the application on the grounds that I am "automatically British having been born in Northern Ireland". The Home Office claims the automatic conferral of British citizenship is not in conflict with the Good Friday Agreement as I have the capacity in law to renounce British citizenship: "Your spouse is entitled to renounce her status as a British citizen and rely on her Irish citizenship, but until that status is renounced she is as a matter of…