Say the ratio out loud before you open Reasoning — recalling it unprompted is exactly what the exam pays for.
Why it matters
It decides the fugitive from justice, which is one of the three special cases examiners set as short notes. The rule is not that a fugitive can never acquire a domicile of choice; it is that this fugitive did not.
Facts
A German fugitive from justice came to England, was present in order to avoid trial, and married in 1975. Her entry and residence were illegal.
Held
She acquired no English domicile of choice: she was there to avoid trial, and her entry and residence were unlawful.
Reasoning
Step one — state the general rule for fugitives, which is permissive. A fugitive from justice may acquire a domicile of choice if it is clear that he intends to establish links with his new country.
Step two — supply the test the course offers. Ask whether the fugitive stayed on long after he could have gone home in safety. If the country is being used as a staging post against extradition, no domicile of choice is acquired.
Step three — apply it. Presence dictated by the need to escape prosecution is residence prescribed by external necessity, and residence must be freely chosen — the same principle that disposed of Winans, where the necessity was illness, and of Colonel Udny's flight to France, where it was creditors.
Step four — add the illegality. Entry and residence in breach of law cannot found the settled, permanent home that the animus requires.
Exam use
It opens: Can a fugitive from justice acquire a domicile of choice? — give the permissive rule, the staying-on test, and then this case as the illustration of failure.
Complete the trio of special cases. Prisoners: a prisoner retains the domicile he possessed before imprisonment, imprisonment being the paradigm of residence dictated by necessity. Refugees: the course is honest that it cannot resolve them, saying there is a presumption against a change of domicile in such cases, but adding that what necessity dictates at first may afterwards become a matter of choice. Learn both halves; the examiner wants the tension.
Relate it back to the two ingredients. Factum and animus; residence freely chosen; and the presumption that an existing domicile continues until a new one is proved.
It does not decide that illegality of residence is always fatal, nor does it displace the rule that a fugitive who genuinely settles may acquire a domicile of choice.