EU free movement in practice at home and abroad By Matthew Evans, Director, The AIRE Centre (Advice on Individual Rights in Europe), 10 May 2016 Introduction At its core the EU project remains a common or single market, involving reciprocal commitments so that not only products (goods and services) but...
Free movement of persons and the single market By Catherine Barnard, Trinity College, Cambridge 10 May 2016; Case studies 1, 3 and 4 provided by Laura Devine Solicitors Introduction This note considers the centrality of migration to the EU’s single market. It also considers the relevant EU Treaty provisions and...
Sovereignty and legitimacy: the UK and the EU By Adrian Berry, barrister, Garden Court Chambers and Rowena Moffatt, barrister, Doughty Street Chambers, 29 April 2016 Introduction The relationship between the UK and the EU raises issues about the UK as a sovereign power, and as to the legitimacy of the...
The extension application of a Tier 2 skilled worker whose annual salary was found to be £22.15 per year short of the specified requirement was refused. The First-tier and Upper Tribunal allowed her appeal on the basis that the shortfall was so small it should be disregarded under the de...
The Immigration Act 2014 removed rights of appeal to an independent judge against refusal of many immigration decisions, replacing appeals with a system of internal review within the Home Office. It is called Administrative Review. The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, has just published a report into how...
These Regulations bring into force specified provisions of the Immigration Act 2016. Regulation 2 lists the provisions which come into force on 31st May 2016 and regulation 3 lists the provisions which come into force on 12th July 2016. The new criminal offence of illegal working comes into force on...
In the ensuing dialogue, Committee Experts expressed concern about the possible repeal of the 1998 Human Rights Act as it was feared that the new Bill of Rights would weaken the protection of children’s rights. Experts were very worried about the increase in child poverty, which was up two per...
In the first judgment of its kind since the suspension of the Detained Fast Track on 2 July 2015, the High Court struck down the Home Secretary’s refusal and certification of an asylum claim which was made in the structurally unfair and unjust Detained Fast Track (DFT) and ordered the...
Not in the foreseeable future, suggests Jerome Phelps of Detention Action over at openDemocracy. The Home Office had proposed new fast track procedure rules but have been politely rebuffed by the Tribunal Procedure Committee: The political pressure on the TPC must have been intense. Ministers have repeatedly made clear the...
What were Harmondsworth and Colnbrook Detention Centres have been brought under the same management, and are now called Heathrow Immigration Removal Centres. Nonetheless, as the Independent Monitoring Board’s report shows, detention centres by another name still have their same old problems. The Board’s recommendations focus on treatment of vulnerable people,...
The President of the Upper Tribunal, Mr Justice McCloskey, has allowed on human rights grounds the appeal of the mother and brother of a refugee child from Eritrea. The mother and brother were the appellants and the child in the UK was the sponsor. The appellants had fled Eritrea after...
The Court of Appeal has found that the Exceptional Case Funding regime for legal aid is lawful, overturning the decision of Collins J in the High Court ([2015] EWHC Admin 1965). The issues are distinct to R (on the application of Gudanaviciene & Ors) v The Director of Legal Aid...
The challenge by organisation Britcits to the virtual prohibition on the entry of adult dependant relatives introduced in 2012 has been dismissed: R (on the application of Britcits) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWHC 956 (Admin). Despite the disappointing outcome, though, there is a distinct silver...
Upper Tribunal Judge Ockelton has drawn attention to the potential issues surrounding the evisceration of the tribunal’s statutory remit by the Immigration Act 2014 in a new reported decision, Katsonga v Secretary Of State For The Home Department (“Slip Rule” : FtT’s general powers : Zimbabwe) [2016] UKUT 2298 (IAC)....
Interesting and controversial case on X-rays and age assessment from the Court of Appeal: London Borough of Croydon v Y [2016] EWCA Civ 398 (26 April 2016). Essentially, the Court holds that the claimant would have to agree to an age assessment by means of a dental X-ray in order...
A new Detention Services Order 04/2016 about internet access for detainees has just been published. This is the first time the Home Office has set central guidelines on internet access for immigration detainees. The Order makes clear that all detainee internet usage is monitored and centrally recorded. The Order states that detainees...
The issue of costs in immigration cases continues to vex the courts. It is supposed to be unusual for the higher courts to have to deal with costs issues but in recent years we have seen some very low quality and controversial costs decisions at first instance in the Administrative...
Presidential guidance on amending claims for judicial review: (i) The amendment of a judicial review claim form preceding the lodgement of the Acknowledgement of Service does not require the permission of the Tribunal. Such permission is required in all other instances. (ii) In deciding whether to exercise its discretionary power...
“Technical”, “deeply unattractive”, “disingenuous”, “singularly lacks merit”, “ridiculous”, “inappropriate”, “extraordinary”. All words used by Elias or Vos LLJ to describe the arguments advanced by the Home Office in the course of their judgments in the remarkable case of R (On the Application Of Ufot) v Secretary of State for the...
President McCloskey has firmly rejected the Home Office case against students alleged to have fraudulently obtained English language test certificate from ETS (“Educational Testing Services Ltd”) in the case of SM and Ihsan Qadir v Secretary of State for the Home Department IA/31380/2014. The President finds that the Home Office...
In yet another case highlighting the absurdly hostile, bureaucratic and inflexible nature of the UK’s Points Based System the Court of Appeal has held that a Tier 1 Entrepreneur might benefit from a policy on evidential flexibility that was “much broader” than the rules themselves. The case is SH (Pakistan)...
Former interpreters for UK armed forces in Afghanistan have lost their claim that the Afghn interpreter relocation scheme was unlawful on the basis it was less generous than the Iraqi equivalent. They succeeded on the basis that the public sector equality duty had not been properly complied with but this...
A new Detention Services Order, DSO 03/2016, has been issued by the Home Office. The name is innocuous — Considering detainee placement — but we can hope that it will have a significant impact because what it really requires is a proper risk assessment before a person is accepted into...
The excellent AIRE Centre are fundraising for a challenge to Operation Nexus, the joint Met Police and Home Office initiative that allows people to be deported from the UK without any convictions. It is not just foreign nationals that are being targeted but also EEA nationals. We’ve covered Operation Nexus...
Upper Tribunal Judge Richard Chalkley retires with effect from 1 May 2016. Upper Tribunal Judge Chalkley (67) was admitted as a Solicitor in 1974. He was appointed a part-time Immigration Adjudicator in 1995, part-time Special Immigration Adjudicator in 1996, Immigration Adjudicator in 1999, Legal Member of the Immigration Appeals Tribunal...
The High Court has awarded damages of just £3,750 to an Algerian man for a period of five months of unlawful detention. This was just the latest period of immigration detention for Mr Sino, though, who has been detained for a cumulative total of seven years and two months. Mr...
A consultation on amendments to the practice direction on duty of candour in judicial review proceedings has been launched by the judiciary. The consultation paper has been prepared by Lewis and Cranston JJ. The headline refers to the Defendant’s duty of candour but in fact very little indeed is proposed...
