All Articles: Cases

Epping Forest District Council has lost its legal challenge in which it sought an injunction to prevent the Bell Hotel being used as asylum accommodation. The case is Epping Forest District Council v Somani Hotels Limited [2025] EWHC 2937 (KB). The Home Secretary and Clearsprings Ready Homes Limited were both...

11th November 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The High Court has said that in cases where accommodation is provided under schedule 10 of the Immigration Act 2016, location can in some circumstances be relevant to the Home Office’s assessment of the suitability of the accommodation. This is in contrast to the “no choice” basis under the Allocation...

7th November 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Two Afghan nationals sought to appeal the High Court’s dismissal of their challenges to the Home Office’s decision to refuse their applications for relocation to the UK under the Afghanistan Response Route, the secret relocation scheme set up in response to the data breach in February 2022. In an OPEN...

7th November 2025
BY Aiya Nakash

The Upper Tribunal has handed down a significant decision on overseas adoptions and their interplay with immigration rules in the case of ST (Adoptions: ‘overseas’ adoptions: para 310) India [2025] UKUT 352 (IAC). The case is a reminder that even where an adoption is recognised as an “overseas adoption” under...

6th November 2025
BY Nath Gbikpi

The High Court has granted permission to our clients, BSC and JS, in a judicial review challenge to the Home Office’s eVisa policy. The claim argues that the Home Secretary is operating an unlawful policy by issuing proof of immigration status only through eVisas and by refusing to provide alternative...

3rd November 2025
BY Unkha Banda

Two more immigration lawyers, a barrister and a solicitor, are facing the possibility of a Hamid hearing and a referral to their professional regulator after the Upper Tribunal issued show cause orders to each of them in cases involving alleged misuse of AI. These are two unreported decisions, one was...

29th October 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The High Court has ruled on the limits of immigration bail powers in the context of electronic monitoring conditions where there is no prospect of the Home Office removing the tag wearer from the UK. The case is R (Mustafa Taskiran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025]...

24th October 2025
BY Jonah Mendelsohn

A care worker has successfully challenged the Home Office’s decision to curtail his skilled worker visa after the High Court found immigration enforcement officers failed to ensure procedural fairness when conducting an interview in the middle of Birmingham New Street Station. Background The claimant in R (On the Application of...

16th October 2025
BY Jack Freeland

A deaf and blind man has unsuccessfully challenged the Home Office’s decision to move him within the asylum accommodation system, away from a place where he could easily access a supportive community. The case is R (BLV) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 2516 (Admin) and...

15th October 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

An immigration adviser trading as Sport Immigration Services (SIS) has lost his appeal against cancellation of registration by the Immigration Advice Authority (formerly OISC). The case is Kesejini (t/a Sport Immigration Services) v Immigration Services Commissioner [2025] UKFTT 290 (GRC). Background Complaints were made about SIS in January and February...

14th October 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Court of Appeal has overturned a refusal of permission by the Upper Tribunal in a judicial review claim where the appellant disputed receipt of an email from the Home Office cancelling his leave. He had seemingly only discovered that the cancellation has been sent after he instructed solicitors to...

13th October 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

We now have the Court of Appeal’s written decision in R (CTK) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 1264. This was the case where the High Court granted interim relief preventing the removal of an Eritrean man to France, prompting a change in the modern...

10th October 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Home Secretary must carry out a review of the policy on refugee family reunion for child refugees under the now closed Appendix Family Reunion (Sponsors with Protection) in line with her duty under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, having failed to do so previously....

9th October 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

A gay man from India has successfully challenged a decision by the Home Secretary to certify his human rights claim, meaning that he was unable to appeal the refusal. He will now be able to appeal the refusal of his human rights claim to the tribunal. This is a Scottish...

3rd October 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Home Secretary has won a deportation appeal in the Court of Appeal, overturning a 70 year old woman’s successful appeal against a refusal to revoke her 23 year old deportation order. Success was only on a narrow point though and the matter has been returned to the same tribunal...

2nd October 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Where multiple decisions have been made in a case, each attracting the right of appeal, care must be taken to ensure that the correct procedural steps are taken, otherwise the tribunal may lack jurisdiction. This position has been set out in a decision of the Upper Tribunal in allowing an...

30th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

In Metin Kaya (Visit Visa: substantive) [2025] UKSIAC SV/01/2024 the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) upheld the Home Office’s decision refusing to issue a visit visa to a Turkish national on the basis that his presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good. The decision takes a...

25th September 2025
BY Iain Halliday

The Upper Tribunal has concluded that a person in the UK on a Health Care Worker visa but encountered working at a restaurant was not undertaking supplementary employment and so his leave was lawfully cancelled. The case is R (Hridoy) v Secretary of State for the Home Department JR-2024-LON-002819. The...

24th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has allowed a judicial review brought by a Palestinian man after a nightmare scenario where the Home Office withdrew the refusal of his asylum claim the day before his appeal hearing, indicating that refugee status would be granted, only to later to resile from that position following...

17th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

In a newly reported Hamid decision of the Upper Tribunal, a barrister has been referred to the Bar Standards Board for investigation following his use of a false citation generated by ChatGPT. The case is MS v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Professional Conduct: AI Generated Documents) Bangladesh...

16th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Court of Appeal has overturned the grant of interim relief in the case of the hotel in Epping where the council sought, and at first obtained, an order for the people being accommodated in the hotel to be moved out by 12 September 2025. The Home Secretary succeeded in...

3rd September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Home Secretary has been ordered to provide asylum accommodation to a man with mental health needs who has continued to be held in immigration detention for 15 weeks after he was first granted conditional bail by the First-tier Tribunal. The High Court also granted permission for judicial review on...

1st September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The First-tier Tribunal will re-hear the appeal of a man who received a letter from the Home Office refusing his asylum, and then a few days later a biometric resident permit reflecting a grant of refugee leave. The Upper Tribunal said that the biometric residence permit is not a grant...

21st August 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Epping Council has succeeded in obtaining an interim injunction to prevent the use of the Bell Hotel as asylum accommodation pending the final outcome of the proceedings. The case is Epping Forest District Council v Somani Hotels Ltd [2025] EWHC 2183 (KB). This is a planning law case so don’t...

20th August 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

In a decision made in April 2024 but only made public now, the High Court quashed decisions made by the Secretary of State of Defence that the claimants were not eligible under the Afghan Response Route because, as a judge and a journalist, they did not work in one of...

19th August 2025
BY Aiya Nakash

The High Court has agreed with the Home Secretary in a judicial review challenging a claimant’s deportation and detention on the grounds that he had an outstanding asylum claim. The High Court held that the implicit withdrawal of the asylum claim was lawful and accepted the Home Secretary’s argument that...

15th August 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

A 68 year old woman has been ordered to pay the Home Secretary’s costs after unsuccessfully challenging a refusal to grant her indefinite leave to remain. The woman became the primary carer for her British granddaughter after her daughter died of Covid in April 2020 and has been working as...

14th August 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has declined to decide a policy challenge to the ten day deadline, and “exceptional circumstances” requirement to extend it, to respond to a notification that the Home Secretary is considering excluding someone from trafficking protections under the public order disqualification. The challenge to the individual decision was...

13th August 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The High Court has dismissed a judicial review challenging the Home Secretary’s failure to implement the recommendations of the Brook House inquiry. The judgment includes a useful annex addressing an application made by the Home Secretary for an order preventing the claimants from relying on material subject to parliamentary privilege....

5th August 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

It has been a big summer for the field of climate change, migration, and international human rights. On 3 July, the Inter American Court of Human Rights released its historic advisory opinion on the legal obligations of states in light of the climate emergency, and on 23 July the International...

31st July 2025
BY Yumna Kamel

A Palestinian family, including children aged nine and seven, have succeeded in a judicial review challenging the UK’s failure to provide them with consular assistance to get them out of Gaza so that they can register their biometrics and come to the UK to join family. The case is R...

30th July 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

A student and her husband have successfully challenged the Home Office’s decision to cancel their leave, with the result that their detention was also held to be unlawful. The case is R (Manpreet Kaur & Anor) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 1942 (Admin). Background...

28th July 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

A care provider has successfully challenged the Home Office’s decision to revoke its sponsor licence after the High Court found the decision maker failed to properly consider explanations for apparent salary shortfalls and reached irrational conclusions about genuine vacancies. Notwithstanding the Home Office’s firm stance on compliance, the judgment in...

24th July 2025
BY Jack Freeland

“They weren’t working, they were just volunteering” is rarely a persuasive defence against a civil penalty. Indeed, it’s positively unpersuasive when those in question were caught voluntarily serving customers, selling alcohol, using the lottery machine to sell tickets and scratch cards, processing parcel deliveries, stacking shelves, and cleaning the store....

23rd July 2025
BY John Vassiliou

The Bar Standards Board has dismissed a barrister’s appeal against disbarment, stating that “findings of professional misconduct, including dishonesty, and the sanction of disbarment imposed by the Tribunal were appropriate and correctly applied”. The case is Dean v The Bar Standards Board (BSB) [2025] EWHC 1860 (Admin). Background The Bar...

22nd July 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has held that a Home Office interview, which took place in prison and in which the applicant provided answers demonstrating that she wanted to remain in the UK based on her private and family life, amounted to a human rights claim. The tribunal separately held that the...

17th July 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

In a new reported decision the Upper Tribunal has set out when new evidence can be considered in an administrative review. The tribunal also said that the evidential flexibility guidance is now so different to that considered by the Court of Appeal in Mudiyanselage v Secretary of State for the...

16th July 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Earlier today the High Court handed down a judgment discharging a super-injunction granted to the Ministry of Defence on 1 September 2023. Following on from this, five previously private judgments have also been published, four by the High Court and one from the Court of Appeal. The case is Ministry...

15th July 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The High Court has ordered the Defence Secretary to publish caseworker guidance on the Triples review, which is reassessing eligibility decisions of certain applications made under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy after several issues were identified with the initial decision making process. The case is R (TPL1) v Secretary...

11th July 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Home Secretary has successfully appealed a tribunal decision that when calculating the ten year period of continuity of residence for the purposes of deportation of an EEA national, time spent as the non-EEA national family member can be included. The case is Secretary of State for the Home Department...

10th July 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan
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