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If Britain gets our taxpayers, shouldn’t it also pay their benefits? Why should Polish taxpayers subsidize British taxpayers’ children?

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6th January 2014
BY Colin Yeo

MK (duty to give reasons) Pakistan [2013] UKUT 641 (IAC) is a corker of a decision from the incoming new President of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the Upper Tribunal, Mr Justice McCloskey. It is well worth a detailed read. Here, I just set out a few of the...

6th January 2014
BY Colin Yeo

News just in… Following the foretold floods of 1 January 2014 and the ending of labour market restrictions for Bulgarians and Romanians, Bulgarian mixed grill (Meshana skara) and Romanian sour soup (Ciorbă) are already outselling chicken tikka masala as the new British national dish here in the UK.

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2nd January 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Official headnote: (1) All Turkish males are required to undergo military service but exemption can be granted on the grounds of physical or mental disability which includes “sexual identity disorder”. (2) Homosexuality is regarded by the Turkish army as a sexual identity disorder but the perception of homosexuality in Turkey...

2nd January 2014
BY Colin Yeo

It has been a busy year for me, for immigration law and for the Free Movement blog. Me I’ve cooked three Christmas dinners this year (turkey, quails, turkey, plus two nut roasts). My children are now aged 3 years old and 18 months old and my wife is back at...

1st January 2014
BY Colin Yeo

In another leak exclusive to Free Movement it is possible to reveal further Immigration Rule changes to be introduced at short notice. It is understood the new Statement of Changes will be published on 25 December 2013, becoming the seventeenth Statement of that month and the 97th of this year....

23rd December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Rehman Chishti: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many vouchers her Department has provided to her Department’s presenting officers for winning cases at immigration tribunals; what the (a) value and (b) store was of each such voucher; and whether these officers face penalties for losing...

20th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Following on from two recent posts on this subject (Judicial review in the Upper Tribunal; Do not lodge Upper Tribunal judicial reviews by post if urgent), there has been another warning about the transfer of judicial reviews into the Upper Tribunal. A claim that includes an element of unlawful detention...

19th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

It is inevitable that the poor treatment of migrants today will be our dishonour tomorrow. Great video and Our Day website from Migrants Rights Network for UN International Migrants Day.

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18th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

In the week before Christmas, at a time when national procrastination levels are at an annual high, the Home Office has had another warning about the need to get on with things when people are locked up. Hot on the heels of JS (Sudan) v SSHD [2013] EWCA Civ 1378...

18th December 2013
BY Free Movement

Following my previous post on Judicial review in the Upper Tribunal someone got in touch with a total horror story. She attempted to lodge a judicial review by fax to the Upper Tribunal. There was no initial response but on enquiry by telephone the next day she was invited to...

17th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

This just in from someone at the European Court of Human Rights: I write in the context of your position as editor of the Free Movement Blog. Please be advised that some important changes are to take place as of 1 January 2014 with regards to Rule 47 and the...

16th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

So, the other day I was doing a Bail for Immigration Detainees case out at Hatton Cross. These are seldom cheery affairs as it involves all of the misery of Hatton Cross and long term immigration detention but none of the financial recompense. It reflects rather badly on me that...

15th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

William Hague ‘paid tribute‘ to the hospitality of the Lebanese people but here in the UK there is no room at the inn: still the UK refuses to offer resettlement to Syrian refugees. Contrast that with Germany, for example.

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13th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Since 17 October 2011, some immigration judicial reviews have been heard in the Upper Tribunal. Until now this was confined to asylum fresh claims and disputed age assessments. From 1 November 2013 most new immigration judicial reviews are heard in the Upper Tribunal. There are a few teething difficulties, though....

12th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Mike Tyson has just been refused entry to the UK because of his previous conviction for rape (The Bookseller, The Guardian, BBC). He was due to promote his new book but his agents were unaware of the change to immigration rules, which occurred quietly in December 2012. I thought it...

11th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

The Court of Appeal has held, overturning the decision of the High Court (see previous blog), that the issue of a certificate under section 15 Justice and Security Act 2013 does not have the effect of terminating existing judicial review proceedings.

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11th December 2013
BY Grace Capel

In R (on the application of P (DRC) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWHC 3879 (Admin), handed down on 9 December 2013, Mr Justice Philips held that P would be at risk of treatment in breach of Article 3 of the ECHR if deported to the...

10th December 2013
BY Abigail Smith

One of the more pernicious aspects of the so-called automatic deportation provisions in the UK Borders Act 2007 is the provision in s.36 for detention while the Secretary of State considers whether an exception to that Act applies. That is to say you can be detained not only while deportation...

9th December 2013
BY Free Movement

The rules governing the PBS are set out in the Immigration Rules and the appendices to those rules. These provisions have now achieved a degree of complexity which even the Byzantine Emperors would have envied. Source

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5th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Two mundane, day to day things are getting my goat at the moment. The first is the mislabeled “cross examination” many Home Office Presenting Officers are trained into and allowed to get away with at court. The other is Presenting Officer failure to put points to witnesses that are then...

4th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

The official headnote to Deliallisi (British citizen: deprivation appeal: Scope) Albania [2013] UKUT 439 (IAC): (1) An appeal under section 40A of the British Nationality Act 1981 against a decision to deprive a person of British citizenship requires the Tribunal to consider whether the Secretary of State’s discretionary decision to...

2nd December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Both parties and practitioners are entitled to expect that the practice and procedure of the court in which their case is heard will be consistent and fair irrespective of which court it is and where it is. Yet a Freedom of Information Act 2000 request made by academics at the...

30th November 2013
BY Bijan Hoshi

Short procedural point to this one and the use of some invisible magic hats: Where an application for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal is made to the First-tier Tribunal outside the prescribed period, rule 24(4) of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (Procedure) Rules 2005 requires that the First-tier...

28th November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Human rights medical treatment expulsion cases are perhaps some of the most stark, most difficult and most challenging cases faced by a human rights lawyer. They concern life itself and will often involve a miserable, painful death if unsuccessful. The claimant and his or her family will be understandably desperate...

27th November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

(1) The right of permanent residence under regulation 15 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006 is capable of being established whilst a national of a Member State or a family member of that national is outside the host country. (2) Leaving aside military service, the reasons for that...

26th November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

We are all very proud at Garden Court Chambers that the fantastic and inspiring Stephanie Harrison QC last night won Liberty‘s Human Rights Lawyer of the Year award. She was cited for her prowess as an advocate for human rights and commitment to progressing the rights of immigrants and asylum...

26th November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Last week, the Supreme Court handed down judgment in Patel, Alam & Anwar v SSHD [2013] UKSC 72, in which Lord Carnwath decided a number of important points affecting the way in which such Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights ‘fallback’ arguments are to be decided.

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25th November 2013
BY Anthony Vaughan

Interesting, reflective piece in The Guardian by Jon Henley on use of walls in the era of globalisation: ‘Something there is,” runs a line from Robert Frost’s poem Mending Wall, “that doesn’t love a wall.” But for as long as mankind has been building, we have been building walls: around...

23rd November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

A non – EEA national family member travelling to the United Kingdom accompanied by the EEA national family member concerned for the purpose of a visit of not more than three months’ duration is entitled to enter, pursuant to regulations 11(2), 12(1) and 13(1) and (2) of the Immigration (European...

22nd November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

It’s the Immigration Law Practitioners Association Annual General Meeting tomorrow, Saturday 23 November 2013. See you there if you are coming – do come and say hello. It is always an interesting day and I’ve picked up all sorts of interesting information in previous years. Alison Harvey will be talking...

22nd November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Newly introduced Immigration Rules (Statement of Changes HC 803) due to take effect on 1 December 2013 will end a concession for family members of members of the armed forces, forcing many such families to separate if the soldier is stationed to the UK. Ending the concession and bringing soldiers...

20th November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Permission has been granted by the Court of Appeal to challenge the outcome of the recent Country Guidance case on Sri Lanka, GJ and Others (post-civil war: returnees) Sri Lanka CG [2013] UKUT 00319 (IAC) (previous post: “New Sri Lankan Country Guidance“). A copy of the Order granting permission can...

19th November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

I contributed a piece for this and can also recommend the pieces by the excellent Giles Peaker and Dan Bunting on their legal blogs, Nearly Legal and UK Criminal Law Blog. Check out the rest of the ever interesting Internet Newsletter for Lawyers while you are there.

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15th November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

In R (Ignaoua) [2013] EWHC 2512, the Administrative Court held that under powers conferred by section 15 Justice and Security Act 2013 the Secretary of State can automatically and unilaterally terminate qualifying judicial review proceedings. The appeal hearing concerning this controversial ruling is imminent. The Claimant was a Tunisian national...

13th November 2013
BY Grace Capel

By choice they made themselves immune/To pity and whatever mourns in man/Before the last sea and the hapless stars A few weeks ago I spent a Friday evening reading through some of the war poems of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. I was trying to get to grips with a case...

11th November 2013
BY Colin Yeo
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