All Articles: Cases

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...

5th March 2019
BY Alex Schymyck

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...

4th March 2019
BY Bilaal Shabbir

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...

1st March 2019
BY Colin Yeo

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...

1st March 2019
BY Nicola Burgess

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...

27th February 2019
BY CJ McKinney

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,...

27th February 2019
BY Bilaal Shabbir

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...

26th February 2019
BY Iain Halliday

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,...

25th February 2019
BY Darren Cox

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...

21st February 2019
BY Alex Schymyck

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...

20th February 2019
BY Darren Stevenson

With so much focus on whether an asylum seeker has established a well founded fear of persecution in their country of origin, the question of whether their appeal falls to be allowed under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights is often given only cursory attention. However, it...

19th February 2019
BY Iain Halliday

R (AC (Algeria)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 188 (Admin) is about how long the Home Office is allowed to delay providing accommodation following the grant of bail in principle by the First-tier Tribunal. Unfortunately, the answer given by the High Court is at least...

15th February 2019
BY Alex Schymyck

Credit where it’s due. In numerous claims and fresh claims for asylum for well over half a decade now, the firm of Barnes Harrild & Dyer has been presenting the Secretary of State for the Home Department with various reports by Professor Emile Joffé giving his expert opinion about the...

14th February 2019
BY Rudolph Spurling

The judgment in SSHD v SS (Jamaica) [2018] EWCA Civ 2817 continues a trend in which ‘foreign criminals’ who had been successful in their initial tribunal appeals against deportation have had those decisions overturned in the Court of Appeal. Free Movement has covered cases like this multiples times in recent...

28th January 2019
BY Nick Nason

An integral part of the procedure of suing for damages is disclosure.  Where Home Office disclosure is inadequate or incomplete, it is necessary to go on pressing for compliance with rule 31 of the Civil Procedure Rules and for specific disclosure.  Those requiring a lesson in how to do so...

25th January 2019
BY Alison Harvey

In the case of R (Akturk) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 297 (Admin), Mr Justice Holman had granted the claimant’s judicial review on traditional public law grounds of unfair decision making. He had also held that the abolition of the right of appeal in Turkish...

24th January 2019
BY E Daykin

The domestic violence concession allows victims of domestic abuse access to public funds while they make an application for settlement. The High Court has now made clear that this concession only applies to those who are already on the route to settlement as a partner in the case of FA...

22nd January 2019
BY Nicholas Webb

Since January 2015, 1,700 settlement applications from Tier 1 (General) migrants have been refused under paragraph 322(5) of the Immigration Rules, primarily due to discrepancies between earnings declared to HMRC and to the Home Office at the time of making an application. During that time, the higher courts in England...

16th January 2019
BY Bilaal Shabbir

The Court of Appeal has reluctantly but unanimously agreed with the Home Office’s decision to refuse a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) application for further leave to remain based on a factual issue of specified documents not being submitted. It rejected arguments that evidential flexibility should apply. The case is Harpreet Singh...

15th January 2019
BY Pip Hague

The High Court has ruled that a claimant is entitled to extra unlawful detention damages for frustration and anxiety where the Home Office fails to provide a release address. The guidance on this issue provided by R (Diop) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 3420 (Admin)...

31st December 2018
BY Alex Schymyck

Brexit notwithstanding, 2018 is likely to be remembered as the year the lid was blown on the government’s hostile environment policy. The debate about how difficult we want the lives of migrants unlawfully in the UK to be has now caught the attention of the mainstream media. It is therefore...

27th December 2018
BY Joanna Hunt

Reading the case of R (Prathipati) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (discretion – exceptional circumstances) [2018] UKUT 427 (IAC), it is impossible not to feel deep admiration for Ms Prathipati. The 28-year-old Indian citizen appeared without a lawyer before Mr Justice Kerr in her application for judicial...

21st December 2018
BY Darren Stevenson

The Court of Appeal has ruled that appeal decisions made using the 2005 Fast Track Rules are not necessarily unfair and unlawful, even though the procedural rules generated an inevitable risk of unfairness in a significant number of cases. This means that the potential unfairness in each appeal decision must...

20th December 2018
BY Alex Schymyck

The Upper Tribunal has held in the case of LS (Article 45 TFEU – derivative rights) [2018] UKUT 426 (IAC) that the family member of a cross border worker within the EU — one who lives in one EU country but works regularly in another — can derive a right...

18th December 2018
BY Colin Yeo

Regular readers of this blog will, by now, be well aware of the Supreme Court’s decision in KO (Nigeria) which determined the correct approach in immigration cases involving children who are either British or who have lived in the UK for seven years. However many, particularly those outside Scotland, may...

17th December 2018
BY Iain Halliday

In R (FB and NR) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] UKUT 428 (IAC), the appellants challenged the legality of the Home Secretary’s removals policy (traditionally known as Chapter 60 of his Enforcement Guidance and Instructions, now titled Judicial reviews and injunctions). Specifically, the challenge tackled the...

14th December 2018
BY Husein Meghji

Many of us have been in the situation where, having challenged the opening of a removal window without a decision having made on an outstanding human rights claim, an 11th hour decision comes from the Secretary of State, along with submissions that our claim is now academic. Where the decision...

14th December 2018
BY Alison Harvey

The High Court has ruled that the regulations for charging non-residents in advance for non-urgent NHS treatment are lawful. In R (MP) v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care [2018] EWHC 3392 (Admin), decided yesterday, the court rejected a claim that the government had a duty to consult...

11th December 2018
BY Alex Schymyck

In MM (Malawi) [2018] EWCA Civ 2482 the Court of Appeal has again confirmed that there is indeed a discrepancy between the domestic law on Article 3 medical cases as set out in the House of Lords case of N v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2005] UKHL...

30th November 2018
BY Chai Patel

In Oksuzoglu (EEA appeal – “new matter”) [2018] UKUT 00385 (IAC), the appellant was a Ukrainian national and the sponsor was a British national. They had spent some seven months in Cyprus and on their return to the UK, the appellant applied for a residence card invoking the Surinder Singh...

29th November 2018
BY Bilaal Shabbir

A client’s statement “I was foolish to…” in a witness statement is sometimes the starting point for the submission “My client is not clever enough to lie/to lie to the extent alleged by the Respondent”. It is an uncomfortable submission to make in the presence of a client but it...

27th November 2018
BY Alison Harvey

In R (Khan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dishonesty, tax return, paragraph 322(5)) [2018] UKUT 384 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal has issued guidance to the Home Office on how to properly decide applications from Tier 1 (General) applicants which raise issues of dishonesty under paragraph 322(5) of...

26th November 2018
BY John Vassiliou

A v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] CSIH 38 is an important 2016 decision from the Court of Session in Scotland, the full impact of which has still to be felt. It concerns the Immigration Rules, as they apply to spouses of refugees, where the spouse has...

23rd November 2018
BY Frank Jarvis

R (Lucas) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 2541 is about re-detention following the grant of immigration bail by the First-tier Tribunal under the now repealed provisions of the Immigration Act 1971. The Court of Appeal ruled that tribunal bail finishes once the person has...

21st November 2018
BY Alex Schymyck

In the case of KV v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 2483 the Court of Appeal accepts that future statelessness is a relevant consideration in an appeal against deprivation of British citizenship obtained on the basis of fraud. The court also gives guidance on the...

20th November 2018
BY Colin Yeo

Appellants in immigration cases would normally be delighted if a court made an unambiguous finding that the government had acted unfairly towards them. Not so the family of Bashar Al-Assad. In a very unusual judgment, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) in LA & Ors (Natualisation : Substantive) [2018] UKSIAC...

14th November 2018
BY John Vassiliou

Invalid applications: in recent years, this has become one of the trickiest and dense parts of our immigration law. It’s one of my favourite areas because it’s so interesting and technical (as those of you who attended the Immigration Law Masterclass Conference will know!). You might ask what the big...

13th November 2018
BY Bilaal Shabbir

In a robust judgment yesterday, the High Court found the decision of the Home Office to cut weekly benefits to asylum-seeking victims of trafficking was unlawful. The rate was previously set at £65 per week and was dramatically cut by 42% from 1 March 2018, to £37.75 per week (the...

9th November 2018
BY Bilaal Shabbir

The High Court’s recent decision in R (Shafikul Islam) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 2939 (Admin) is yet another case on the vexed issue of whether appeals against refusals of EEA residence cards are suspensive of removal (spoiler: no). I previously expressed grave reservations that...

8th November 2018
BY Bilaal Shabbir

R (Liral Veget Training And Recruitment Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 2941 (Admin) was a challenge to the Home Office’s decision to revoke a company’s licence to sponsor non-EU citizens for work visas. It failed. The case was about the Tier 2 (General) visas...

6th November 2018
BY CJ McKinney
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