10 responses

1. This is an interesting case, where an Immigration Lawyer is castigated by a senior Judge for the manner in which he argued a case, and for (it seems) deliberately ignoring a key legal test.

   The citation is below, you can also find a link to the case (and some support for the lawyer in question) on Asad Khan’s blog.

   VHR (unmeritorious grounds) Jamaica [2014] UKUT 367 (IAC)

   1. Have already written up a post on it, which is scheduled for when I’m away, I think the week after next. Contrasts with a ore recent case. Thanks for the heads up, though.

2. Why don’t you publish it now whilst it’s fresh?
   Will this not be rather old news in two weeks time?

   1. It is old news now as it is a couple of weeks old and I wanted to spread things out while away. And I am indeed going away this morning.

3. Is this a new type of Hamid hearing? I can say for sure that the Home Office is getting legal tests wrong all the time and ignores them too. I don’t see/hear judges saying anything to them. Their papers are so poor (when they have any that is), it’s totally scandalous. It’s so degrading. Reminds me of things I’d expect to see in Pakistan.

4. The difference is that in corrupt and primitive Pakistan if a British (or American etc) client is unhappy with the district/civil/family judge they can go (and one can accompany them) and complain to the provincial chief justice that they are being treated unfairly. That way the judge’s attitude in the lower courts can be “corrected”. In lovely England, where there is no corruption and just neglect instead, a client cannot do this. I’m not at all suggesting that Pakistan is “better” than England (clearly it is not). Only that in Pakistan if a client does not like a judge (as they are not imparting justice, not doing their job and are perhaps engaging in corruption), they can have him/her changed quite easily. Plus since all the readers and staff in the courts are good friends (at least with me), they can list hearings as per a client’s convenience and judges will have to go by the list. So it’s easier to “get justice” for Mrs A (a British lady who wants to settle scores with her Pakistani husband) in Pakistan than it is for Mr B (from Poland who had some drugs on him in Birmingham).

   You can’t say here in the UK that IJ X and Mr Y are not nice (they do not like criminals for eg) so they can’t hear Mr B’s appeal. Speaking to Eric Fripp last year about Sheldon Court; he concurred that it’s like out of a movie or something out of apartheid South Africa.

5. There are procedures for complaints against Immigration Judges. Or you can appeal higher. I had a very nasty experience with an IJ in January and was able to overturn on appeal- sent back to the FTT for hearing by any judge but the IJ in question. So sometimes the system works.

6. I hear you. You can’t “bully” the judges in the UK. Good that you complained. I’m trying to get an Indian lady to do the same (albeit in a different context). She was detained by her GP for 30 mins when she asked for a reference for herself and her family. It was all explained beforehand to the GP that she sought a reference for her immigration application. However, on the day the GP detained (falsely imprisoned) her first in a room and reported her to the police (they did nothing to her of course). Now this lady is really scared to complain about the GP. Then this other GP also ratted out another gentleman, a Yazedi Kurd “failed asylum seeker”, who is mentally ill and the Home Office sent him a notice to his address (credit to them though, he was notified of TA). These grassings up by medical profession are worse than Sheldon Court. I’m hoping that you’ll have luck with 7 years from age 4 (Azimi-Moayed). Agreed that the system does work, but you have to try really hard to make it ;-)

7. Happy holidays

8. Underneath Colin’s announcement in his e-mail that he is going to be away for two weeks is a picture of a man being bundled into a van. Is there a connection?