A few snippets from a recent debate in the House of Lords. An amendment to the current Immigration Bill currently wending its way through Parliament was tabled which would close the Tier 1 Investor route. This type of visa is obtained by making an investment of at least £2 million...
Changes from last version of this guidance updated to reflect Immigration Act 2014 changes since v8.0 clarification on how paragraph 353 applies to human rights only cases, including valid applications made under the Immigration Rules after an earlier asylum or human rights claim has been refused additional circumstances in which paragraph 353...
Exploring the boundaries of refugee law, recently published by Brill/Nijhoff as part of their International Refugee Law series, arises from a successful conference hosted by the Refugee Law Initiative in London in 2012. Papers arising therefrom are now presented in this hardback volume, with a thought-provoking essay to set the...
Page contentsWhy do we think this?What does the research show?Memories are actively reconstructed each time they are recountedMemories change over timeMemories change over time, sometimes very significantlyTruthful witnesses change as much as 30% of the details of an event on subsequent retellingsMoreover…Truthful witnesses often remember more details over timeWhat have...
Our advice services in Brighton provide specialist legal advice, casework and representation on housing, asylum and immigration matters together with one off advice provided over the telephone or at drop in sessions, and digital advice via webcam on housing and welfare benefits issues. There are two teams, the housing and...
Section 29(4) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 results in the Upper Tribunal having powers in relation to the making of wasted costs orders (as defined in section 29(5)) which are not subject to the limitations in s.29(3) or r.10 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008....
Interesting article (in English) on the recent case of L.E. v Greece (Application No 71545/12) (in French) in which the European Court of Human Rights held that Greece had breached Article 4 ECHR by failing to fulfil its positive obligations to recognise, properly investigate and protect a victim of trafficking....
Welcome to the January 2016 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. In this episode I start on immigration fees and the Shaw Review, cover a long list of tribunal cases on various issues, move on to some higher court cases on EU deportation cases, nationality and deception issues, detention...
Interesting: This page tells you about law enforcement agencies (LEAs) making requests to the Home Office to allow a foreign national to enter or remain in the UK to give evidence at a trial. Due to the international element of serious and organised crime, there are certain foreign nationals whose...
Rule imposing mandatory refusal for deception is not ultra vires says Court of Appeal. Unsurprisingly. A student was convicted for driving with excess alcohol and also for driving without due care and attention. He was made subject to a community order with an unpaid work requirement and a requirement to attend...
Very kind mention for my piece on Paddington here, described as “magnificent and delightful”. Thank you, David! Do check out the other blogs, all of which I follow and find inspiration in. As David discusses, it is a mystery that more solicitors do not make better use of blogging. I...
Sending an immigration decision to an email address is effective service, subject to rebuttal: (1) Notice of a decision (not falling within the Immigration (Notices) Regulations 2003) is “given” for the purposes of s.4(1) of the Immigration Act 1971 when it is (a) “sent” in accordance with Art 8ZA of the...
The Court of Appeal has returned to the issue of “totally without merit” certificates in judicial review cases. These certificates can be imposed by a judge who refuses permission for an application for judicial review on the papers and it prevents the applicant from seeking an oral hearing. There is...
Press release The Legal Centre, located in the heart of the Calais slum and created on the Calais’ Appeal initiative that gathers more than 50 000 signatories, invites you to a press conference on Friday, February 12th at 11:00 am, at our office, to bring you up to date with...
The headnote is a tad Delphic on this one: Inaction is not giving notice for the purposes of s 104(4B). Section 104(4B) concerns whether appeals might be treated as abandoned in certain circumstances. Where leave is granted during an appeal, section 104(4B)(b) requires notice to be given for the appeal...
The Upper Tribunal interprets spouse extension rule paragraph 284 on overstay and valid applications, required documents and whether an old English language certificate is sufficient in a refreshingly realistic and enabling determination: (i) The correct construction of paragraph 284(iv) of the Immigration Rules is that the applicant has a period of...
This post is reblogged from Professor Steve Peer’s excellent and comprehensive post on the immigration aspects of UK’s renegotiation proposals. What follows is the section of that blog post on family members. Head over to the original for more information on benefits, the “emergency brake” and criminality and free movement...
UPDATE 10/2/16: the judge has withdrawn the judgment. A married Indian couple detained in a dawn raid have lost their claim for unlawful detention. After successfully studying in the UK for some years, Ms Joshi’s latest application ran into problems when the college to which she applied to study a PhD was...
A person sentenced to a term of 12 months imprisonment made up of consecutive terms is not a ‘foreign criminal’ within the meaning of the deportation provisions of the Immigration Rules and is not therefore subject to paragraph 398 of those Rules. Source: OLO and Others (para 398 – “foreign...
In the case of VV (grounds of appeal) [2016] UKUT 53 (IAC) (13 November 2015) the Upper Tribunal yet again criticises Home Office conduct of appeals to the Upper Tribunal against decisions of the First-tier. This case comes on top of Nixon (permission to appeal: grounds) [2014] UKUT 368 (IAC) (FM post: Contrasting cases on...
This is just a quick note to update everyone that Cranston J has listed four cases for hearing on 25 and 26 February 2016 challenging the lawfulness of the Detained Asylum Casework (DAC)/ Detained Non-Suspensive Appeals (DNSA) system (i.e. the post- July 2015 incarnation of the system formerly known as...
Although the Algerian Criminal Code makes homosexual behaviour unlawful, the authorities do not seek to prosecute gay men and there is no real risk of prosecution, even when the authorities become aware of such behaviour. In the very few cases where there has been a prosecution for homosexual behaviour, there...
Lone women in Pakistan without family support may be at risk of persecution, rules tribunal: (1) Save as herein set out, the existing country guidance in SN and HM (Divorced women – risk on return) Pakistan CG [2004] UKIAT 00283 and in KA and Others (domestic violence – risk on return) Pakistan CG [2010] UKUT 216 (IAC) remains valid....
Only danger to lesbians in India is from their own family, rules tribunal: (1) The guidance in MD (same-sex oriented males) India CG [2014] UKUT 65 (IAC) stands. The guidance at (a) – (f) in MD (India) applies equally to lesbians. (2) A risk of persecution or serious harm for a lesbian woman in India, where it exists,...
Following the judgment last year in R (on the application of Zewdu) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 2148 (Admin) (09 June 2015) solicitors Duncan Lewis have revealed that the Home Office agreed to pay a record £40,000 in damages for the 19 month delay in...
Quick note from S Chelvan of No 5 Chambers: Lord Justice Treacy has granted permission to appeal in proceedings which seek to challenge refusal of a fresh claim, but also seek to challenge Detained Fast Track determinations made under the 2005 Detained Fast Track Rules. Underpinning the three decisions under...
A new report into asylum casework at the Home Office has just been published by David Bolt, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. The inspection took place between March and July 2015 and was presented to Theresa May on 9 December 2015, so publication has been delayed for...
Welcome to the December 2015 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. In this episode I talk about a few more general issues such as Donald Trump and visas bans, a refreshed post on Adult Dependent Relatives and a post by Berrnard Ryan on whether the new requirement for...
New research shows that the modest economic growth of the past four years has been met by an unprecedented shortage of skills, leaving thousands of vacancies unfilled. Source: Employers facing talent poverty as skills shortages rise 130% in four years – Press releases – GOV.UK I couldn’t resist sharing this. It...
In the case of R (on the application of Babbage) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWHC 148 (Admin) Mr Justice Garnham ordered the release of a detained Zimbabwean foreign criminal. In the process, he was corruscating critical of the conduct of Government lawyers acting for the Secretary of...
The Government’s “right to rent” scheme requiring landlords to conduct “papers, please” checks on the immigration status of tenants comes into force today, 1 February 2016. It is hard to think of a worse example of a disproportionate policy, classically defined as a hammer being used to crack a nut. Who...
Full judgment is available here: R (on the application of ZAT and Others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Article 8 ECHR – Dublin Regulation – interface – proportionality) IJR [2016] UKUT 61 (IAC). The applicant children were all clearly very vulnerable and all had family members in the UK....
Question: …the issue raised on this appeal may be stated in the following terms: was the Appellant entitled after 9 July 2012 (when the new Immigration Rules came into effect) to continue to accrue continuous residence for the purposes of the 14 year rule contained in paragraph 276B of the...
Well, this was a bit cheeky. A woman with an outstanding in-country immigration appeal was removed by the Home Office when she should not have been. The Home Office then argued that her appeal had to be treated as abandoned becuase of section 92(8) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum...
Mr Johnson was born on 18 March 1985 in Jamaica. His mother was a Jamaican national and his father was a British national. At the time of his birth, an “illegitimate” child could acquire British nationality at birth or by registration as a minor only if his mother was a...
In the case of Onos v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWHC 59 (Admin) Mrs Justice Laing held that the decision to remove a Nigerian lady and her three children was a lawful one but that the decision to detain the family at the Cedars facility prior to...
