All Articles: Cases

The Court of Appeal answers this question in the negative in Secretary of State for the Home Department v George [2024] EWCA Civ 1192. The case also contains some procedurama* about points which can be raised on appeal not previously taken and considers the applicability of points said to be...

17th October 2024
BY Nick Nason

The High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland has dismissed a judicial review alleging a breach of article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights because of the delay in the applicant’s asylum claim. The case is JR247, Re Application for Judicial Review (Rev1) [2024] NIKB 72. Background The...

16th October 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has given useful guidance on when such grants can be made to non-Afghan nationals as well as setting out a summary of the legal principles to be followed on the interpretation of policy. The case is R (Bam Bahadur Gurung) v Secretary of State for the Home...

4th October 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In R (Nakrasevicius) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 1856 (Admin), the High Court ordered the defendant Home Secretary to release a detainee who was being detained pending the resolution of Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings against him in the Crown Court. It addresses the relatively...

1st October 2024
BY Alex Schymyck

What protections under EU free movement law does someone with status under the EU Settlement Scheme enjoy if they are facing deportation due to committing a criminal offence after 31 December 2020? This question was considered by the Upper Tribunal in Secretary of State for the Home Department v Vargova...

30th September 2024
BY Iain Halliday

In a decision that forced me to google Pericles (an ancient Greek politician) and Santayana (a Spanish-American philosopher) the First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) has allowed an appeal relating to the Home Office’s refusal to disclose the report on “The Historical Roots of the Windrush Scandal”. This is the second...

27th September 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In Adegboyega v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 2365 (KB), the High Court has awarded £203,995 to a victim of the abuse at Brook House immigration removal centre. The judgment is a vindication of the bravery of detainees who came forward to participate and give evidence...

25th September 2024
BY Alex Schymyck

An applicant has successfully challenged the Home Office’s refusal of his application for further leave to remain in the old Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) route after obvious errors were made both procedurally and in the refusal letter. The case is R (on the application of Ghadam) v Secretary of State for...

16th September 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory has unsuccessfully appealed a grant of bail allowing the small group of people seeking asylum on Diego Garcia to access certain parts of the island. The case is The Commissioner v The King (on the application of VT & Ors) (No. 3)...

29th August 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

A challenge to the lack of legal aid for young people who have turned 18 since first claiming asylum to have a legal representative attend their asylum interview has been dismissed by the High Court. The case is R (Alhasan) v Director of Legal Aid Casework & Anor [2024] EWHC...

27th August 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has said that where family life exists, the article 8 rights of family members overseas need to be taken into account and it is wrong to focus only on the rights of the UK based sponsor. Following on from that, the refusal to grant entry clearance to...

22nd August 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has held that an Afghan man who was living in Ukraine at the time of the Russian invasion and who wanted to come and join his brother in the UK was lawfully refused a grant of entry clearance under the Ukraine schemes. The case is R (on...

21st August 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has held that the Home Office guidance on Zambrano carers is wrong to require decision makers to assess whether a person may be able to make an application with a “realistic prospect” of succeeding under Appendix FM. This was the same conclusion reached by the High Court...

14th August 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Home Office has been ordered to disclose data on the numbers of emergency travel documents issued for Eritrea and Somalia, and how long it took for those documents to be issued, after refusing to provide the information in response to a request made under the Freedom of Information Act...

12th August 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Court of Appeal has upheld a decision by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission to dismiss an appeal against the deprivation of British citizenship of a man who travelled to Syria and fought with a group aligned to Al-Qaeda. The case is B4 v Secretary of State for the Home...

7th August 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In response to the judicial review claim R (MS) v SSHD AC-2024-LON-000866, the Home Secretary has admitted a practice of intentionally delaying claims for temporary permission to stay made by asylum seeking trafficking victims who were at the time earmarked for possible removal to Rwanda. The pause, which was not...

31st July 2024
BY Rachel Etheridge

A claimant has successfully challenged a move from his asylum accommodation after a failure on the part of the Home Office to engage with the evidence as to why the move was unsuitable because of his particular circumstances. In his case those circumstances were that he had won a scholarship...

26th July 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In a really interesting case, the High Court has held that issue estoppel prevents His Majesty’s Passport Office from refusing to issue a passport to an applicant, because of a finding made by the First-tier Tribunal that he is, in fact, British, despite the lack of evidence. That case is...

24th July 2024
BY Alex Piletska

The High Court has found that a decision to refuse to register a child as a British Citizen was lawful, despite the “barely stated” reasons given. The case is R (OBN (a minor) by his litigation friend ASM) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 1833...

22nd July 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The court has held that a parent granted a family permit under the EU Settlement Scheme based on assumed dependency must show actual dependency to get leave to remain when applying after 1 July 2021. That decision is Secretary of State for the Home Department v Rexhaj [2024] EWCA Civ...

17th July 2024
BY Alex Piletska

It’s the return of the “mystery” stamp! Although the Court of Appeal has come to a different conclusion than the Upper Tribunal did, holding that while a passport stamp did not amount to a relevant document for Appendix EU purposes, the protection of the Withdrawal Agreement was engaged because of...

11th July 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The “Pending Prosecutions” section of the EU Settlement Scheme: suitability requirements version 8.0 policy, which provided for applications to be paused where there was a pending prosecution, has been held to be unlawful by the Upper Tribunal. The case is R (Lukasz Krzysztofik) v Secretary of State for the Home...

10th July 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Due to the stated position of the previous Conservative government that there would be a removal flight to Rwanda on 24 July 2024, a High Court hearing was due to take place over four days starting on 9 July 2024. Due to the election of a Labour government and their...

9th July 2024
BY Jed Pennington

The High Court has again confirmed that mandatory sponsor licence revocation is, indeed, mandatory. One Trees Estates Ltd, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 1644 (Admin) brings consensus to the courts’ approach on the Home Office’s duty to undertake a wider...

9th July 2024
BY Jack Freeland

The Court of Appeal has, for the third time this year, had to intervene where the Upper Tribunal has failed to do so, in a case involving poor conduct on the part of the First-tier Tribunal. This case is Hima v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024]...

1st July 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The High Court has held that the decision made by Suella Braverman not to implement recommendations made in Wendy Williams’ review into the Windrush scandal was unlawful. The recommendations specifically related to the creation of a Migrants’ Commissioner role and the review of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and...

26th June 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

One of the changes wrought by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (remember that?) is an apparent increase in the standard of proof in refugee status claims. This change applies to everyone who applied for asylum on or after 28 June 2022. There has been a huge waiting time for...

18th June 2024
BY Colin Yeo

The High Court has said that it was not unlawful that a Kenyan refugee who had been trafficked to the UK as a domestic worker had to wait from August 2019 to April 2023 for a decision on her trafficking claim. The court also said that the delays within the...

13th June 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The High Court has held that, when judicially reviewing a decision of the Upper Tribunal refusing permission to appeal (known as a Cart judicial review), there is no oral permission hearing. This was the conclusion reached in Karim v Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) [2024] EWHC 1368 (Admin). The...

12th June 2024
BY Iain Halliday

Two claimants, the charity Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London “RAMFEL” and Ms Adjei, have succeeded in a judicial review where it was held that the Home Secretary’s failure to provide people on section 3C leave with digital evidence of their status was unlawful. The case is R...

11th June 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In the latest and last judgment in some fairly complex litigation around the use of hotels to accommodation and other issues, the High Court seems to have finally got to a point with Kent County Council where they accept that they cannot get around the duty to find a placement...

10th June 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal alleging procedural unfairness in a First-tier Tribunal hearing where the judge asked a “significant” number of questions. The court also gave a brief reminder of the importance of counsel raising any issues with judicial conduct during the appeal itself. The case is...

7th June 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

As the Home Office continues to step up enforcement action in the care sector, we have had another sponsor licence revocation decision involving a large care home operator successfully judicially reviewed in the High Court. In R (New Hope Care Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024]...

4th June 2024
BY Jack Freeland

There is nothing wrong with the integrity of the process by which Educational Testing Service (“ETS”) identifies its English language test results as “invalid” or “questionable”, the Upper Tribunal has said. As a result, where ETS provides evidence indicating that the test relied upon by an individual was taken by...

3rd June 2024
BY Keelin McCarthy

The High Court has held that the decision to refuse to grant exceptional case funding for legal aid to a person applying to the Windrush compensation scheme was lawful. The case is R (Oji) v The Director of Legal Aid Casework [2024] EWHC 1281 (Admin). Background to the compensation scheme...

29th May 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

After over two and a half years of children being held in inhumane conditions on Diego Garcia, the Supreme Court of the British Indian Ocean Territories has ruled that key safeguarding provisions of the 1989 Children Act apply to the territories. Background In September 2021, a group of Tamil asylum...

24th May 2024
BY Kristen Allison

A man who had lived in the UK for over 20 years and was married to a British national before the relationship broke down has been unsuccessful in his challenge to an entry clearance refusal on the grounds that he had not received the notice of curtailment. The case is...

22nd May 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The High Court has determined that the Home Secretary’s use of electronic monitoring was unlawful in respect of four claimants and the principles applied in the case will have a wider impact. The court also found that the Home Secretary can lawfully use data collected through electronic monitoring to decide...

21st May 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has found the guidance to be used those who cannot travel to enrol their biometrics because it is unsafe to be unlawful. The individual refusal decisions were also quashed. The linked cases are RM and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department JR-2024-LON-000082 and WM...

20th May 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Following a legal challenge, the small group of Sri Lankan people seeking asylum in Diego Garcia have been granted bail so that they are able to access more of the island beyond the tiny encampment they were kept in previously. We have previously published a post providing the historical context...

14th May 2024
BY Guy Atoun

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