Strasbourg allows Somali test case
28 June 2011
13 Comments
The cases of Sufi and Elmi v UK (Applications nos. 8319/07 and 11449/07) have been allowed by the European Court of Human Rights. This is a
The cases of Sufi and Elmi v UK (Applications nos. 8319/07 and 11449/07) have been allowed by the European Court of Human Rights. This is a
Further to Shivani’s last post on this, the numbers facing removal on the charter flight to Sri Lanka are lower than originally thought, although it still constitutes
An investigation is required as a matter of extreme urgency into an accepted breach of confidentiality in respect of the case of a Sri Lankan
Last weekend I finally read the Refugee Council report Lives in the Balance: The quality of immigration legal advice given to separated children seeking asylum. It
Ever since the mysterious disappearance of the IAA Gender Guidelines from the old IAA website, there has been an absence of good guidance to immigration
The Court of Appeal shows its despair at the immigration tribunal in the case of RM (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011]
Firstly, I should apologise for getting behind with my updates. I have nominally been on holiday this last week and my internet connection, perhaps fortuitously
A slightly belated post to highlight another important decision of the Court of Appeal that will have relevance to both immigration and family law practitioners.
The long awaited new Country Guidance case on Zimbabwe is finally out: EM and Others (Returnees) Zimbabwe CG [2011] UKUT 98 (IAC) (BAILII link here). It
The Home Office has introduced a new way of dealing with the return of families from the UK. It is called the ‘family return process’.
Mr Justice Collins has rejected a claim for damages by an asylum seeker who was kept waiting for over a year for a decision on
In what to me is a shocking development, we learn through the case of R (on the application of AO) v Secretary of State for the
There have been a few quite interesting tribunal determinations recently, which I have overlooked for various reasons. I thought it was high time for a
The European Court of Human Rights has just held that it is unlawful to send asylum seekers to Greece under what is widely known as
Although not quite on the scale of Wikileaks, Free Movement can today publish a confidential leaked document from the UK Government. It is entirely in
Welcome to the first post on Free Movement not by freemovement! Several of us in the immigration team at Renaissance Chambers will be contributing posts to
New Immigration Rules have just been laid in Statement of Changes CM 7944. The main change is that the English language requirement for spouses and
As recently as 14 September 2010 the Government’s position was that it is not enforcing returns to Zimbabwe. In a debate in the Commons on
UKBA has published a new fact finding report on the situation in Zimbabwe. It is, probably not by co-incidence, just in time for the new
The methods and reports of controversial linguistic analysis company Sprakab, based in Sweden and used by UKBA in disputed nationality asylum cases, have been warmly
The tribunal has held that it is safe to return to Iraq. In HM and Others (Article 15(c)) Iraq CG [2010] UKUT 331 (IAC) President
The Government has confirmed that removals to Greece under the Dublin II Regulation have been suspended pending the outcome of the test case. This comes
UKBA has published a new policy on dealing with children, specifically asylum applications by unaccompanied children. It went ‘live’ on 1 September 2010 and can
The tragic demise of Refugee and Migrant Justice, formerly known as the Refugee Legal Centre, leaves a gaping and unfillable void in the immigration sector.
UKBA has laid Statement of Changes CM7929 to give effect (or, at least, limited effect) to the judgment of the Supreme Court in ZO (Somalia)
Some tremendously good news for many refugees: in the new case of FH (Post-flight spouses) Iran [2010] UKUT 275 (IAC) the tribunal has found that
Plainly the ratio of HJ is not limited just to sexual orientation cases but will apply to all grounds covered by the Convention. I thought
R (on the application of Medical Justice) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWHC 1925 (Admin) should be a wake up call
An unpublished UKBA internal investigation has rejected the complaints made by Louise Perrett about the Cardiff asylum team. A summary has been made available. The existence
The Home Office appeal to the Supreme Court in ZO (Somalia) [2010] UKSC 36 has been dismissed. This confirms that in cases where a fresh asylum
HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] UKSC 31 represents a fundamental change in UK asylum law. The
UPDATE: see proper post here with analysis. Sorry for the headline, which is in fact an accurate description of what has happened. Although from the
The Court of Appeal has again revisited the vexed question of removals to war torn countries like Somalia in the major new case of HH
Just a quick alerter post. This actually happened a couple of weeks ago but I was insanely busy at the time, then forgot to mention
The Big Fat Greek Test Case has been dismissed. Read all about it here. Permission has been granted to appeal to the Court of Appeal,
The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights has intervened in a Strasbourg case on Greek refugee protection – or rather lack of it: The Commissioner
Judgment is out in JS (Sri Lanka), an appeal to the Supreme Court from KJ (Sri Lanka) in the Court of Appeal. Judgment here, summary
Further to my alerter post on this last month, the judgment is now available in the damning Third Country removals case on children. It is
The Court of Appeal has re-visited the proper approach to deciding whether fresh asylum claims meet the rule 353 test. The case is R (on
Mr Justice Collins has given a scathing judgment in a grant of permission to a judicial review challenge to the practice of the Home Office’s
The cases of Sufi and Elmi v UK (Applications nos. 8319/07 and 11449/07) have been allowed by the European Court of Human Rights. This is a major judgment on return to Somalia and the conditions there. The press release can be found here and the judgment here (Word version here, BAILII version...
Further to Shivani’s last post on this, the numbers facing removal on the charter flight to Sri Lanka are lower than originally thought, although it still constitutes a mass removal. Evidence of other breaches of confidentiality in Sri Lankan asylum cases is emerging. These could be isolated mistakes or there...
An investigation is required as a matter of extreme urgency into an accepted breach of confidentiality in respect of the case of a Sri Lankan Tamil woman detained by the UKBA and pending removal to Sri Lanka on 16 June 2011. It is important to stress that UKBA do not...
Last weekend I finally read the Refugee Council report Lives in the Balance: The quality of immigration legal advice given to separated children seeking asylum. It is a short, sharp, very depressing but absolutely essential read for any solicitors, OISC advisers or barristers representing separated children in the asylum process....
Ever since the mysterious disappearance of the IAA Gender Guidelines from the old IAA website, there has been an absence of good guidance to immigration judges on gender issues in an immigration context. The Equal Treatment Benchbook has a very good chapter on women and equality generally but it does...
The Court of Appeal shows its despair at the immigration tribunal in the case of RM (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 428 (13 April 2011). All three judges lament the fact that they have to remit the case back to the tribunal for...
Firstly, I should apologise for getting behind with my updates. I have nominally been on holiday this last week and my internet connection, perhaps fortuitously for my holiday, died unexpectedly half way through. Briefly, we have seen a major judgment from the Supreme Court on detention issues and a major...
A slightly belated post to highlight another important decision of the Court of Appeal that will have relevance to both immigration and family law practitioners. R (FZ) v London Borough of Croydon [2011] EWCA Civ 59 concerns age dispute assessments and has set further guidance on a) how procedurally speaking...
The long awaited new Country Guidance case on Zimbabwe is finally out: EM and Others (Returnees) Zimbabwe CG [2011] UKUT 98 (IAC) (BAILII link here). It includes interesting guidance not only on Zimbabwean asylum claims but also on dealing with cases where children have been resident for seven years or...
The Home Office has introduced a new way of dealing with the return of families from the UK. It is called the ‘family return process’. If it is faithfully implemented by staff on the ground (a big ‘if’), it represents a massive improvement on the previous approach. The main policy...
In what to me is a shocking development, we learn through the case of R (on the application of AO) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWHC 110 (Admin) (28 January 2011) that it actually takes the UK Border Agency longer to process a child’s asylum claim...
There have been a few quite interesting tribunal determinations recently, which I have overlooked for various reasons. I thought it was high time for a catch up, otherwise I’ll never force myself to sit down and digest them. MJB (Inability to provide protection, JAM) Trinidad & Tobago CG [2010] UKUT...
The European Court of Human Rights has just held that it is unlawful to send asylum seekers to Greece under what is widely known as the ‘Dublin II’ Regulation for their asylum claims to be processed there. The case is MSS v Greece and Belgium, no. 30696/09, 21 January 2010...
Although not quite on the scale of Wikileaks, Free Movement can today publish a confidential leaked document from the UK Government. It is entirely in keeping with the traditional Home Office practice of bundling as many immigrants out of the country during public holidays (“Your lawyer is on holiday? Shame…”)....
Welcome to the first post on Free Movement not by freemovement! Several of us in the immigration team at Renaissance Chambers will be contributing posts to this blog in future, and this is the first effort. You may need to bear with us a little as we find our digital...
New Immigration Rules have just been laid in Statement of Changes CM 7944. The main change is that the English language requirement for spouses and partners has been introduced, as expected. It takes effect for new applications made on or after 29 November 2010. Those with applications in before that...
As recently as 14 September 2010 the Government’s position was that it is not enforcing returns to Zimbabwe. In a debate in the Commons on that day the following question and answer were given: Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab): Given the critical situation in Zimbabwe, does it remain the Government’s...
UKBA has published a new fact finding report on the situation in Zimbabwe. It is, probably not by co-incidence, just in time for the new test case on Zimbabwe, due to begin on 20 October 2010 and in which the Immigration Advosory Service are again acting. Presumably, UKBA will be...
The methods and reports of controversial linguistic analysis company Sprakab, based in Sweden and used by UKBA in disputed nationality asylum cases, have been warmly endorsed by the tribunal in the case RB (Linguistic evidence Sprakab) Somalia [2010] UKUT 329 (IAC). Sprakab works only for governments and has only ever...
The tribunal has held that it is safe to return to Iraq. In HM and Others (Article 15(c)) Iraq CG [2010] UKUT 331 (IAC) President Blake finds that The degree of indiscriminate violence characterising the current armed conflict taking place in Iraq is not at such a high level that...
The Government has confirmed that removals to Greece under the Dublin II Regulation have been suspended pending the outcome of the test case. This comes following a number of recent news items on the calamity that is the Greek asylum ‘system’. Or, in the words of UNHCR themselves, ‘humanitarian crisis’....
UKBA has published a new policy on dealing with children, specifically asylum applications by unaccompanied children. It went ‘live’ on 1 September 2010 and can be found with the earlier link or in the Asylum Process Guidance Special Cases section. The policy is a considerable improvement on the previous version....
The tragic demise of Refugee and Migrant Justice, formerly known as the Refugee Legal Centre, leaves a gaping and unfillable void in the immigration sector. With its higher than average success rate and top notch training and nurturing programme for asylum lawyers, it is simply irreplaceable. What happened? I start...
Some tremendously good news for many refugees: in the new case of FH (Post-flight spouses) Iran [2010] UKUT 275 (IAC) the tribunal has found that Article 8 appeals by the spouses of refugees who married the refugee after the refugee left the country of origin should normally be allowed. Ever...
Plainly the ratio of HJ is not limited just to sexual orientation cases but will apply to all grounds covered by the Convention. I thought it might be interesting to start with that quotation from the paragraph 38 of TM (Zimbabwe) & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home...
R (on the application of Medical Justice) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWHC 1925 (Admin) should be a wake up call to civil servants at UKBA and Ministers in the new Government. The High Court declared unlawful the Home Office policy of conducting no notice removals....
An unpublished UKBA internal investigation has rejected the complaints made by Louise Perrett about the Cardiff asylum team. A summary has been made available. The existence of the ‘grant monkey’ was confirmed, but seems to have been found to be entirely benign. No racial overtones to it, then, and no...
The Home Office appeal to the Supreme Court in ZO (Somalia) [2010] UKSC 36 has been dismissed. This confirms that in cases where a fresh asylum claim has been made and no decision was reached for a year, the asylum seeker obtains a right to work under European law. This...
HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] UKSC 31 represents a fundamental change in UK asylum law. The previous settlement, established by the case of Iftikar Ahmed [2000] INLR 1, was a very British and pragmatic one. Essentially, the question of whether future...
UPDATE: see proper post here with analysis. Sorry for the headline, which is in fact an accurate description of what has happened. Although from the half of the judgment I’ve managed to read so far, their Lordships prefer to refer to ‘practising homosexuals’. A bit like the apocryphal ‘popular beat...
The Court of Appeal has again revisited the vexed question of removals to war torn countries like Somalia in the major new case of HH (Somalia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 426. The issues at stake have also been the subject of a major...
Just a quick alerter post. This actually happened a couple of weeks ago but I was insanely busy at the time, then forgot to mention it. Permission was granted by the Court of Appeal in MS and others (family reunion: “in order to seek asylum”) Somalia [2009] UKAIT 00041 on...
The Big Fat Greek Test Case has been dismissed. Read all about it here. Permission has been granted to appeal to the Court of Appeal, though. No news on what will happen to other cases stayed behind Saaedi but they’ll probably stay stayed. Read about the third country removals litigation...
The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights has intervened in a Strasbourg case on Greek refugee protection – or rather lack of it: The Commissioner concluded that current asylum law and practice in Greece are not in compliance with international and European human rights standards, expressing at the same...
Judgment is out in JS (Sri Lanka), an appeal to the Supreme Court from KJ (Sri Lanka) in the Court of Appeal. Judgment here, summary here. The Secretary of State’s appeal was dismissed and the Court of Appeal judgment largely upheld, other than in respect of too tightly defining liability...
Further to my alerter post on this last month, the judgment is now available in the damning Third Country removals case on children. It is called R (on the application of T) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWHC 435 (Admin). As expected, the judgment is scathing....
The Court of Appeal has re-visited the proper approach to deciding whether fresh asylum claims meet the rule 353 test. The case is R (on the application of YH) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 116 and it effectively supersedes WM (DRC) and interprets the...
Mr Justice Collins has given a scathing judgment in a grant of permission to a judicial review challenge to the practice of the Home Office’s Third Country Unit (TCU) in detaining and removing children to supposedly safe third countries such as Greece and Italy. The case was heard yesterday and...