The Supreme Court has granted permission to appeal in the case of MP (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 829 and allocated reference number UKSC 2015/0027. Progress can be tracked on the Supreme Court website but the case does not yet appear there....
UPDATED The appointment of Fiona Lindsley, Nadine Finch and Melanie Plimmer as salaried judges of the Upper Tribunal has been announced today. All three are well known in the immigration law community and their appointment is fantastic news. We will miss Nadine horribly at Garden Court Chambers but wish her...
The latest from the Upper Tribunal on the statutory presumptions on human rights cases introduced by the Immigration Act 2014 is the case of Chege (section 117D : Article 8 : approach : Kenya) [2015] UKUT 165 (IAC). The determination seems very deeply flawed indeed because that it is based...
The major changes to rights of appeal and removal powers wrought by the Immigration Act 2014 took full effect on 6 April 2015, although with some transitional provisions for existing cases. This blog post, based on the second edition of my Immigration Act 2014 ebook, examines and attempts to explain...
Garden Court Chambers is running a free seminar on The Immigration Act 2014: Appeals, Administrative Review and Judicial Review. The provisions represent a major change, with fewer migrants entitled to appeal and on far fewer grounds. The commencement and transitional provisions are unhelpfully complex. Three expert practitioners will guide you...
Right to citizenship seminar at Garden Court Chambers with Laurie Fransman QC and Adrian Berry, Thursday 23 April 2015, 18:30 – 20:00. Part of our Fundamental Rights series, our panel of expert immigration and nationality lawyers will cover the following topics: Citizenship as a human right Deprivation of citizenship and...
A new “health surcharge” was introduced for all new applications for entry clearance or leave to remain made on or after 6 April 2015. The charge is £150 per year for students and £200 per year for all other types of application. A charge is payable for each dependent as...
A full second edition of my Immigration Act 2014 ebook is now available. It includes the new commencement provisions on removals and appeals, examples to aid understanding and links to the various new Home Office policies. A great deal of work has gone into the second edition and Free Movement...
Interesting snippet I just spotted while trawling appeals policies for a major update of the Immigration Act 2014 ebook and course: A person who has an appeal pending can make a fresh application for entry clearance in the same or any other category. There is no requirement for a person...
Great to see Chelvan’s profile on the I Am An Immigrant website. He is an inspirational campaigning lawyer and academic and occasional contributor to Free Movement. The campaign has generated a huge amount of interest and publicity and I’m proud to have been able to support and promote it.
...The Office of the Children’s Commissioner is seeking evidence on the impact of the family migration rules on children. You can download the full questionnaire here from JCWI or go through these questions to express an interest in helping: The consultation closes on 1 September 2015.
...In a short but powerful judgment the Court of Appeal has clarified the approach to continued detention on the basis that removal can be effected within a reasonable time. The decision is also important for the analysis of case law concerning detention where the prospects of effecting return depend upon...
A new pre action protocol for judicial review applications came into effect on 6 April 2015. Rather unfortunately, it was not published. You can now find it here (h/t @NearlyLegal). The judicial review pre action protocol applies in both the Administrative Court and the Upper Tribunal: The Upper Tribunal Immigration...
In Nguyen (Anti-Trafficking Convention: respondent’s duties) [2015] UKUT 170 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal accepts what I had thought was the well established point that the Home Office has duties to historical victims of trafficking: The duties of a signatory to the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in...
In the case of Xue v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 825 (Admin) the Home Office claimed that the court had no “superhero” jurisdiction and could not or should interfere with the right of the Secretary of State indefinitely to detain a foreign national. Happily for...
Welcome to the February 2015 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. For February I cover some tribunal, High Court and Court of Appeal cases, some quickly and some in more detail, I mention some upcoming legislative changes that will be covered in more detail next month and some...
Rather than write my own detailed piece on the Supreme Court’s judgment in Pham v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] UKSC 19 I’m mainly going to refer you an excellent piece by Simon Cox on the Open Societies Foundation website: Case Watch: UK Supreme Court Backs Government...
Anyone working with child asylum seekers — lawyers, civil servants, judges — should read UNHCR’s new publication The Heart of the Matter: Assessing Credibility when Children Apply for Asylum in the European Union. It came out a couple of weeks ago but looking for it just now to update the...
James Brokenshire, until the dissolution of Parliament last week the Minister of Immigration [EDIT: I am reliably informed that he is still the Minister – thanks go to Alison Harvey!], has confirmed that the recent tightening of policy on granting British citizenship was not aimed at refugees. The change of...
The image above is of a Californian doctor sobbing outside the hospital building having lost the 19 year old patient on whom he was operating. It has gone viral on social media. It was also picked up in The Guardian in an interesting article by Deborah Orr: The image of...
Case of R (On the Application Of Islam) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWCA Civ 312 (27 March 2015) on Edgehill, Halumudeen, Singh etc etc: More Edgehill, Halumudeen, Singh 9/7/12 hokey pokey bollocks. How does this stuff reach the Court of Appeal? Strewth. http://t.co/BaeBUzP4dv —...
A successful judicial review claim by a trafficking victim is reported at R (on the application of FM) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 844 (Admin) (26 March 2015). Philip Mott QC sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge found that the Home Office had unlawfully...
The Conservative Party is pledging radically to expand out of country appeals to any migrant with no leave after the election. The Daily Mail piece is clearly well informed and includes some examples that can only have come from a Home Officer brief. Given that appeals will only be on...
The Migration Advisory Committee has been asked to look at the Tier 1 Entrepreneur route again and are holding a consultation which closes on 12 June 2015. Details here. The issues to be examined are: the initial eligibility criteria of access to funds is sufficient and whether other criteria, for example,...
Upper Tribunal Judge Craig takes a hardline stance against certification as clearly unfounded an Article 8 claim based on 19 years unlawful residence in the case of R (on the application of Singh and another) v Secretary of State for the Home Department IJR [2015] UKUT 134 (IAC): In this...
The full list of fees for immigration applications from inside and outside the UK applying from 6 April 2015 has been published. There are some hefty and puzzling increases: a 50% hike to £162 for visiting academics for some reason, a 57% increase to £592 for relatives of refugees, a...
The High Court has found part of the Tier 1 Entrepreneur rules to be irrational in the case of R (on the application of Sabir & Ors) & Anor v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 264 (Admin). Despite succeeding on part of the challenge, though, the case...
UPDATED. Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules HC 1116 restricts Syrians with transit visas travelling to the UK from travelling through the UK and forces them to apply for a UK visa. The refusal rates for such visas have steadily increased during the conflict and now stand at 60%....
It is all change for rights and grounds of appeal on 6 April 2015. The previous range of grounds of appeal, which included section 84(1)(d)of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 — “that the appellant is an EEA national or a member of the family of an EEA national...
Normally, where an application for judicial review is made the first stage is for a judge to consider the grounds for judicial review and the acknowledgement of service and summary grounds of defence, then decide without holding a hearing whether permission should be granted. Lawyers commonly refer to this decision...
