Hard on the heels of one legal aid climb-down by the Lord Chancellor comes another. The government has conceded that legal aid lawyers can be paid for their work on a judicial review case where the decision being challenged is withdrawn while an oral permission hearing is pending. Legal aid...
The government has announced some changes to the immigration system to give the impression that the UK is a welcoming and functioning country despite the ongoing chaos of Brexit. Chancellor Philip Hammond, giving a Spring Statement economic speech yesterday, said that PhD level jobs would be taken out of the...
KK (India) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 369 was an appeal against removal from the UK based on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The appellant argued that the Home Office had not given sufficient consideration to her Article 8 rights,...
The draft Immigration, Nationality and Asylum (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, laid before Parliament on 11 February, make major changes to the law on deportation of European Economic Area and Turkish citizens after Brexit. They will kick in on the date of Brexit, if there is no deal, or at the...
The Supreme Court has finally laid to rest the argument (advanced by me amongst others) that second or subsequent human rights or asylum claims automatically attract a right of appeal under the appeal regime of the Immigration Act 2014. They don’t, say their lordships. The meaning of “human rights claim”...
A visa application form filled in on a computer, printed off and posted to the Home Office is not an “online application”. That is probably no surprise to anyone but the appellant in R (Shah) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 368, who tried to...
The updated list of fees for immigration and nationality applications that apply from 29 March 2019 shows that most remain unchanged from this year. The amount the Home Office has been charging to process visa, settlement and citizenship applications has risen steadily above inflation for many years. This year, against...
A deportation case with a twist: R (Foley) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 488 (Admin) involved an Irish citizen who requested deportation but was denied it. Fans of the genre may recall the Connell case that we covered on the blog last year. The judgments...
In a unanimous decision the Court of Appeal have allowed the appeal of an Ahmadi who was unable to demonstrate that his case fell within the relevant country guidance decision of MN and others (Ahmadis- country conditions- risk) Pakistan CG [2012] UKUT 389 (IAC). The case is WA (Pakistan) v...
The Court of Appeal has in the case of AS (Afghanistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 208 decided that the Upper Tribunal can correct a mistake made in the reasons for a determination. The court interprets Rule 42 of the procedure rules as affording this power,...
This is significant: the Immigration (European Economic Area Nationals) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. The most important of the changes are to give non-EU extended family members of EU citizens a right of appeal against refusal of a family permit or residence card. The regulations also implement last summer’s Court of...
Welcome to the delayed January 2019 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. We start the round-up with some mixed news on appeal rights before getting into the latest on Brexit and the Settlement Scheme for EU citizens living in the UK. There is some significant new guidance on...
A new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules was published today, 7 March 2019. It is 294 pages long and covers a lot of ground. The main changes are to Tier 1 entrepreneur and investment visas, and to the EU Settlement Scheme. This requires, inevitably, a new appendix to the...
The government has proposed the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration as the interim monitoring body for the EU citizen settled status scheme. This briefing examines the powers, remit and impact of the Chief Inspector. The Chief Inspector is a person — currently David Bolt and previously John Vine...
The Court of Appeal has ruled that the regulations on the detention of asylum seekers subject to the Dublin III removal procedure comply with EU law. Background: detaining migrants before return to another EU country The International Protection (Detention) (Significant Risk of Absconding Criteria) Regulations 2017 (SI 2017 No. 405)...
TT (Vietnam) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 248 is a human trafficking appeal. The Home Office accepted that TT was a victim of trafficking but nonetheless sought to deport him. Lord Justice Davis held that it is possible for the Secretary of State to...
The Supreme Court has had to remind the immigration tribunal that self inflicted torture by proxy (SIBP) is inherently unlikely. Self inflicted torture by proxy is the least worst phrase so far devised for describing the idea — and it really is just an idea, a figment of someone’s fevered...
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) has settled its legal action with the government over the EU Settlement Scheme following changes to the system. The revisions address concerns that the detailed rules for the scheme would allow the Home Office to deny settled status to more EU...
Just weeks from the date that the EU and UK’s divorce is due to take place, the position of UK travellers to the EU remains foggy. The clock is ticking and Prime Minister May is still caught between the EU and her own government, struggling to reach an agreement that...
In R (Majewski) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 473 (Admin) the High Court has concluded that EU citizens who were unlawfully detained solely because they were homeless should be paid damages at the normal rate. In the important Gureckis judgment of December 2017, the High Court had ruled that...
Luis Lopes came to the UK aged 6. As a teenager, he pleaded guilty to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and unlawful wounding, receiving four years’ youth detention. The Home Office wanted to deport him. The First-tier Tribunal blocked deportation but was overturned by the Upper Tribunal...
Over the next 12 months, the government will be rolling out a whole package of measures designed to enhance the UK’s global image. These will include both new and relaxed immigration options for innovators, tech experts, scientists, researchers, artists and sportspersons. The Home Office’s approach to visiting artists and sportspersons...
The President of the Upper Tribunal’s decision in OA and others (human rights; ‘new matter’; s.120) Nigeria [2019] UKUT 65 (IAC) has added another layer of complexity to an already biased and convoluted system. Readers are probably au fait with when the Secretary of State’s consent is required for an...
Since the case of R(C) v First-tier Tribunal [2016] EWHC 707 (Admin) the tribunal has been forced to accept that litigation friends can and should be appointed to help those who lack capacity to conduct their own tribunal proceedings. The procedure rules and practice directions are even now yet to...
It is a decade since the UK agreed to lift its immigration reservation to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, recognising that “migrant” children are, well, children too. Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 was enacted to this end, creating a duty for...
Today, the High Court has ruled that the ‘Right to Rent’ checks, a key policy of Theresa May’s so-called “hostile”, now rebranded as “compliant environment”, cause landlords to discriminate against prospective tenants on racial and nationality grounds. Mr Justice Martin Spencer has handed down a damning verdict excoriating the government,...
Today the High Court found in the case of R (Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 452 (Admin) that the government’s Right to Rent scheme causes racial discrimination in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Joint Council for the...
I acted for the appellant in the extraordinary case of Guled v SSHD [2019] EWCA Civ 92, in which the Court of Appeal ruled on the legal status of a deportation order made in 2002. 2002: deportation order made Even by immigration standards, Mr G had a complex case. We...
The High Court has called in the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Director of Public Prosecutions over the conduct of a shambolic citizenship case. The judgment is Jetly & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 204 (Admin). The circumstances of the case are baffling even when laid...
The upshot of the Upper Tribunal’s decision in AK and IK (S.85 NIAA 2002 – new matters) Turkey [2019] UKUT 67 (IAC) is that a person who relies upon a different category of the Immigration Rules to succeed under Article 8 at their appeal or in a section 120 statement,...
The Upper Tribunal has held that the non-EU partner of an EU citizen cannot start accruing time towards permanent residence status until they have a residence card, pointing out the well established distinction between family members and extended family members in EU free movement law. In short: a person married...
I will confess to overlooking this case initially. After all, Sir Stephen Richards introduces his judgment in KK (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 172 by saying “the issue is a narrow one, turning on the specifics of the individual case”. That is...
We’ve finally put the finishing touches to our comprehensive online training course on Appendix FM to the Immigration Rules. This is the bit of the rules dealing with the entry of family members, including spouses, partners, children, parents and grandparents. We cover the evidential requirements at Appendix FM-SE as well,...
In Mohammad Racheed v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] CSIH 8, the Inner House of the Court of Session held that a judicial review challenge to the certification of a human rights claim to remain in the UK as “clearly unfounded” can include new evidence. Mr Racheed,...
Last month, for the first time in my career, I took a client’s appeal to the media instead of the immigration tribunal. Mozaffar Saberi and Rezvan Habibimarand are an elderly Iranian couple (83 and 73) living in Edinburgh. They have four adult British children, 11 British grandchildren and a British...
In this blog post, Judith Reynolds, Research Associate at Cardiff University’s Centre for Language and Communication Research, offers immigration law practitioners some reflections and tips for communicating with foreign language-speaking clients. As all legal practitioners are keenly aware, communicating effectively with clients is central to good legal practice. Being aware of...
In a newly reported judgment the Upper Tribunal has quashed the Secretary of State’s decision to refuse a request from the Greek government to take charge of the asylum claims of a mother and her three children so they could reunite with the father, who lives in the UK. The...
The government has collected less than half the fines issued to employers for hiring undocumented migrants over the past five years, according to a Free Movement estimate using data released under the Freedom of Information Act. The value of illegal working fines handed out to companies, even if reduced by...
The UK government did not begin its deprivation of citizenship policy yesterday, when Home Secretary Sajid Javid signed an order stripping Shamima Begum of her British nationality. The deprivation of citizenship power has been increasingly used in recent years, with 104 citizens deprived of their British nationality in 2017 alone....
Bhandari & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 129 considered some fairly elderly Upper Tribunal case law on fairness and the Points Based System, and in particular a decision of Mr Justice Blake in Patel (Revocation of Sponsor Licence: Fairness: India) [2011] UKUT 211...
