C-573/14 Lounani (Grand Chamber, 31st January 2017) A person applying for protection under the 1951 Refugee Convention can be excluded from its provisions under certain circumstances. As the Court of Justice of the European Union explained in B and D in 2010, these circumstances include those guilty of committing terrorist...
Well worth a read. This practice note seeks to: clarify the status of legal professional privilege (LPP) explore recent concerns about how the right has been asserted summarise practitioners’ duties clarify the main principles of LPP LPP protects all communications between a solicitor or barrister and his or her clients...
Being female does not on its own establish a need for international protection. In general, the level of violence and discrimination against women in Egypt will not in most cases amount to a real risk of persecution or serious harm. The onus is on the woman (or girl) to demonstrate...
The Supreme Court has granted permission to appeal against the Court of Appeal case of R.(On the Application of Hysaj) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWCA Civ 1195. On 27 February 2017, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom granted permission to the appellants, as to the...
“EU citizens will not be removed from the UK or refused entry solely because they do not have comprehensive sickness insurance,” said a spokesman. Very welcome news but it is difficult to understand the Home Office’s legal position on all this. They are categorically NOT saying that they will recognise a...
The Free Movement blog has turned ten; the first blog post was published on 7 March 2007. In the last ten years the blog has received 9,572,432 page views (and counting…). It has been quite a ride, driven by the thirst for up to date, clear and well sourced information on immigration and...
Official (rather terse) headnote: The deportation of a former Malaysian national and former BOC is liable to be deemed unlawful where relevant Government Policies relating to inter-state arrangements with Malaysia have not been taken into account or given effect. I’ve got some sympathy for the Home Office on this one....
The Solicitor Disciplinary Tribunal has fined an immigration solicitor £10,000 for signing off “grossly misleading and inaccurate” statements of truth for judicial review applications. The solicitor concerned, Achyuth Rajagopal of G Singh Solicitors in London, admitted acting recklessly and in a manner apt to mislead the tribunal and failing adequately...
“Two visas had been rejected … I was wrenched by a heavy feeling of humiliation…trying to prove that I’m a “normal person” like any Englishman, that I’m not aspiring to swap my career in Egypt as a cartoonist [and] scriptwriter … for British social welfare, that I really want to...
This Commons Library briefings looks at the Government’s work to resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees in the UK by the end of this Parliament, under its Syrian Vulnerable Person Resettlement Programme. It has also committed itself to resettling up to 3,000 vulnerable children currently in the Middle East and...
Worth a read, and I’m not just saying that because I’m quoted: Britain is the only European country to allow indefinite detention under immigration laws. Some of those held are migrants who have committed crimes but cannot be removed, because their home countries are too dangerous. But of those detained...
In this case an asylum seeker asserted he was a child. The local authority treated him as an adult while his age was assessed, contrary to the Age Assessment Guidance by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. No cogent reason was given for departing from the guidance and the...
Official headnote to Lama (video recorded evidence -weight – Art 8 ECHR : Nepal) [2017] UKUT 16 (IAC): (i) Video recorded evidence from witnesses is admissible in the Upper Tribunal. Its weight will vary according to the context. (ii) Alertness among practitioners and parties to the Upper Tribunal’s standard pre-hearing Directions and compliance...
Very interesting if depressing read: Last September, SubScribe looked at the prevalence and tone of anti-immigration stories produced by Fleet Street, accompanied by a bar chart of front pages. At the time there were 195. By the end of the year, there were 277, with more than half coming from two newspapers...
Source: Criminality guidance in article 8 ECHR cases – GOV.UK The change log says: Additional sections to reflect the Supreme Court judgment in Hesham Ali (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] and the European Court of Justice judgement in Ruiz Zambrano (European citizenship) [2011] ECJ C-34/09....
Lord Justice Irwin gives the leading judgment in UB (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 85, in which the Home Office failed to serve a relevant policy document during an appeal: 16. In my view there was the clearest obligation on the Secretary...
Welcome to the November 2016 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This episode I start with the some updates about the immigration tribunal and some tribunal case law, move on to cover some important legislative and procedural changes – a section of the Immigration Act 2016 coming into force,...
Page contentsSummaryWho is affected?What is the effect?What new powers has the Home Office acquired?Investigation of right of residenceEnforced removalWhere do rights of residence of EU citizens in the UK come from?1. Treaties2. Directives and Regulations made by the EU3. Domestic laws of the United KingdomWhat is the “right of residence”?What...
With thanks to Unbound Philanthropy for the funding, I have been able to put together a series of ebook guides aimed at EU and EEA nationals wanting to apply for residence documents here in the UK. They are updated and expanded versions of my existing ebook on EU applications, and...
Just a few bits and bobs from the details of the latest quarterly statistics: Outstanding EU law residence document applications stands at 95,146 (source). That is a LOT. It is hard to see how the Home Office can meet the 6 months deadline for deciding these applications. Outstanding citizenship applications...
Potentially useful case when seeking to agree costs in good time. The official headnote: Where judicial review proceedings are resolved by settlement, the parties are responsible for doing all they can to agree costs, both as to liability and amount, rather than leaving this to the decision of the Tribunal, which...
i) Article 13 of the Immigration (Leave to enter and Remain) Order 2000/1161 (the “2000 Order”) applies to holders of indefinite leave to remain (“ILR”) who travel to a country or territory outside the common travel area so that their ILR does not lapse but continues if Article 13(2)-(4) are...
The first signs of an online court will be visible in tribunals by September, online processes will be extended to a wide range of civil court proceedings by May 2020, and the reforms will be incremental, according to one of the judges in charge… …The first jurisdictions to adopt the...
The Court of Appeal is testing out a new style of “short form” judgment. Given the backlogs at the Court of Appeal at the moment, this seems eminently sensible. Although the particular judgment — yet another appeal by the Secretary of State against a deportation appealbeing allowed — does beg...
In linked judgments in the case of MM and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] UKSC 10, known to many as just “the MM case,” the Supreme Court has this morning upheld in principle the Minimum Income Rule which requires an income of at least £18,600 for...
Brexit is causing significant delays in the processing of EU free movement documentation applications. In normal times, before the Brexit vote on 23 June 2016, an EU national could expect a permanent residence certificate to be issued in about 6 weeks and a family member about 4 months or so. The...
By Matthew Evans, Director, AIRE Centre Page contentsIntroductionWhat can EEA nationals and their family members residing in the UK do now to protect their position?Proving their rightsDelaysComprehensive Sickness InsuranceWhat other evidence do I need to include?Qualifying for permanent residence (EEA(PR))Qualifying as a worker (EEA(QP))Qualifying as someone who is self-employed (EEA(QP))Qualifying as...
Official headnote: (i) On a proper construction of paragraph 245AAA(a)(i) of HC 395, an absence from the United Kingdom for a period of more than 180 days in one of the relevant 12 month periods will entail a failure to satisfy the requirements of paragraph 245CD. (ii) The term ‘residence’...
The Tribunal Procedure Committee (TPC) is interested to receive your views on changes arising from the Immigration Act 2016, in particular to a number of changes to bail, which the Tribunal Procedure Committee considers may make amendments to the rules relating to bail applications desirable. The Immigration Act 2016 (“the...
By Bernard Ryan, Professor of Migration Law, University of Leicester Page contentsIntroductionRights of residence in EU lawWhy a right to remain?A negotiated approachThe content of an agreementDecisions at the United Kingdom level Introduction This paper is concerned with the possibility of a post-Brexit right to remain for those residing in the United...
A rapid decline in the number of immigration tribunal judges could herald a crisis, despite the government’s insistence that there is sufficient capacity to deal with a growing backlog of work. Government figures show that in 2012 there were 347 fee-paid and 132 salaried judges in the first-tier tribunal. In...
Hundreds of foreign nationals in the UK are being denied access to immigration advice according to new research from the charity Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID). In their new report, Mind the Gap: Immigration Advice for Detainees in Prisons, BID has found that just 1 in 20 people held under...
‘[I]t has to be said, Asmara does not feel like the capital of a country generating asylum applications with a 85% grant rate’ (sic) – Informal Home Office report of UK visit to Eritrea, 9-11 December 2014 In 2014, nationals of Eritrea were the second largest group of asylum...
In her just published book, Reconstructing Judicial Review, Sarah Nason (Bangor University) uses legal theory and empirical research to explore the extent to which the nature of judicial review has changed since 2007. Here she discusses the research behind the book and sets out key features of judicial review as a...
A raft of new Home Office policies and forms for EU and EEA nationals was released in early February, along with significant changes to the online application process. These changes accompany the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016, which took effect for all applications from 1 February 2017. I have...
The article deals with people claiming asylum in the UK on the basis of a well-founded fear of persecution due to their sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI). Although the UK is a country that respects and actively promotes SOGI rights, the UK does not always provide adequate protection to...
Sounds very interesting and topical: Given-Wilson, Z., Herlihy, J., Hodes, M (2016). Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, Vol 57(4), Nov 2016, 265-273 Unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC) are separated from caregivers, have often been exposed to significant additional past and ongoing adversities, and seek protection from war, organised violence or persecution in...
A new set of requirements for overstayers who apply for leave to enter or remain in the UK was introduced late last year. In short, the 28 day grace period for overstayers was abolished and replaced with a very limited 14 day limit, but only where a “good reason” was also...
According to estimates, there are 10,000-13,000 victims of modern slavery living in the UK. In order to tackle this problem, the UK government operates a Modern Slavery Strategy, and the Border Force plays its part by identifying potential victims, and ‘targeting’, ‘intercepting’ and ‘disrupting’ traffickers, primarily at the border. How...
Short version: not a lot we did not know already Long version… Yesterday, the day after MPs began the process of the UK leaving the EU, the Government published a White Paper on Brexit. The formal title is The United Kingdom’s exit from and new partnership with the European Union...
