All Articles: Cases
Confirmed victims of human trafficking who claim asylum to get improved residence rights
In R (EOG & KTT) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 307, the Court of Appeal has confirmed that challenges arguing that Home Office policies breach the European Convention Against Trafficking (ECAT) are justiciable insofa ...
18th March 2022Home Office wins trafficking support payments appeal
In R (MD and EH) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 336, the Court of Appeal has found that the Home Office’s non-payment of additional financial support to human trafficking victims who have children and receive asylum ...
17th March 2022UK wrongly insisted on Comprehensive Sickness Insurance for years, EU court finds
Eligibility for NHS treatment does count as Comprehensive Sickness Insurance, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled. The case is C‑247/20 VI v Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Background: non-working EU citizens needed health ...
15th March 2022“Sorry episode”: Chief Justice reprimands Home Office for disclosure failures
Yilmaz & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 300 concerned two Turkish nationals, Mr Yilmaz and Mr Arman, who were deported in 2017 due to their criminal convictions. Both had made human rights claims to stay in the U ...
14th March 2022Victim of brutal domestic abuse loses appeal against deprivation of British citizenship
A mother of three British children has lost her appeal against the decision of Amber Rudd to take away her British citizenship in 2017. The judgment of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) makes for very grim reading. The woman, anonym ...
10th March 2022High Court quashes “clearly unfair” local authority age assessment
In R (SB (a child)) v Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea [2022] EWHC 308 (Admin) the High Court held that an interview conducted by social workers as part of a short-form age assessment was “clearly unfair”. This was because of the ...
28th February 2022Home Office challenge to Sri Lanka country guidance fails
The Home Office has been refused permission to appeal against the latest Sri Lankan country guidance decision. The case is KK and RS (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 119. Background Last year, in KK and RS (Sur ...
28th February 2022Challenge to New Plan for Immigration thrown out
In R (A and Others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWHC 360 (Admin), Mr Justice Fordham refused permission for a judicial review challenge to the consultation on the Home Office’s New Plan for Immigration. The judgment’s l ...
23rd February 2022Article 3 protects asylum seekers against removal even if they could leave voluntarily
Where an individual would be at risk if forcibly returned to a part of his country of nationality, is it a valid answer to a protection claim that he might nevertheless avoid any such risk by returning voluntarily to another part of that country, even ...
18th February 2022Unfairness required to set aside appeals decided on paper under unlawful COVID-19 process
Immigration appeals decided without a hearing under the Upper Tribunal’s notorious COVID-19 guidance don’t automatically fall to be set aside, the Court of Appeal has held in Hussain and another v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] ...
17th February 2022What role does the European Convention Against Trafficking play in UK law?
In R (SV) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] UKUT 239 (IAC), the Upper Tribunal has held that the European Convention Against Trafficking (ECAT) not being a part of UK domestic law is no reason to refuse to examine the lawfulness of a ...
16th February 2022English barristers CAN argue immigration cases in Scotland… so long as they don’t set foot there
A Scottish lawyer can represent a client in the immigration tribunal anywhere in the UK. The same is true of a Northern Irish lawyer. The same is true of a level 3 adviser registered with the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner. Lawyers pr ...
15th February 2022Refugees can make backdated child tax credit claims
I can do no better than adopt Tom Royston’s summary of R (DK) v Revenue and Customs [2022] EWCA Civ 120: in an important decision about the rights of refugees to financial support for children, the Court of Appeal in England and Wales has agreed ...
10th February 2022How human trafficking victims can appeal against criminal convictions
In R v AAD, AAH, and AAI [2022] EWCA Crim 106, handed down on Thursday 3 February 2022, the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) has outlined avenues to appeal against criminal convictions for victims of trafficking who are confirmed as such after conv ...
7th February 2022Can the Iranian government see what dissidents post on Facebook?
The Upper Tribunal has put out a country guidance ruling on the Iranian government’s monitoring of dissidents on Facebook. Previous case law on the general human rights situation in Iran continues to hold good, but the new decision makes additio ...
3rd February 2022Supreme Court upholds government’s right to set child citizenship fees as it chooses
The Supreme Court has dismissed a challenge to the level at which the government has set the fees for children to register as British citizens. The court held that the government has been authorised by Parliament to set the level of the fees as it cho ...
2nd February 2022Stripping people of British citizenship without telling them is definitely illegal – for now
The UK government’s attempt to strip a British-Pakistani woman of her citizenship without telling her was unlawful, a split Court of Appeal has confirmed. Lord Justice Baker and Lady Justice Whipple held that the regulation allowing notice of ci ...
27th January 2022Uncertainty persists for Zambrano carers following Court of Appeal ruling
The Court of Appeal has dismissed the government’s appeal against last year’s decision that the EU Settlement Scheme rules on Zambrano carers are unlawful. But the judgment in Akinsanya v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] E ...
26th January 2022Upper Tribunal revisits “marriages of convenience”
This blog has previously discussed the difficulties that arise from the different definitions of “sham marriage” and “marriage of convenience”. The Upper Tribunal has now returned to this topic in the recent decision of Saeed ( ...
26th January 2022British citizenship can be taken away if criminal offending not disclosed
The Upper Tribunal has affirmed the continuing obligation to disclose material facts in applications for naturalisation as a British citizen, including facts which arise after submitting the application. The case is Walile (deprivation: self-incrimina ...
24th January 2022High Court dismisses concerns about legal aid in detention centres
The High Court has thrown out a challenge arguing that the free legal advice given to migrants in detention centres is rubbish. Mr Justice Calver held that statistical evidence that many legal aid firms provide a poor service was unreliable and that & ...
18th January 2022Inflexible biometrics policy for refugee family reunion declared unlawful
In R (SGW) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Biometrics , family reunion policy) [2022] UKUT 15 (IAC), the Upper Tribunal decided that Home Office guidance on refugee family reunion applications is unlawful because it fails to accurately d ...
17th January 2022Ethiopia still not safe for Oromo Liberation Front supporters, country guidance confirms
In AAR (OLF – MB confirmed) Ethiopia CG [2022] UKUT 1 (IAC), the Upper Tribunal has confirmed that the situation in Ethiopia has not changed substantially enough to allow a departure from previous country guidance. This is important because peop ...
17th January 2022Students hit by immigration status processing delays entitled to student loans
The regulations on student finance in England list different categories of people who are eligible for student loans. One category is people who are “settled” in the UK on the first day of the first academic year of their course. To be settled in ...
13th January 2022Slashing support payments to potential slavery victims defied clear policy
The High Court has again taken the Home Office to task for its stingy approach to supporting vulnerable asylum seekers during the pandemic. In R (JB) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWHC 3417, the court held that the department un ...
12th January 2022Human rights damages claims can be transferred from Upper Tribunal to County Court
The Upper Tribunal has decided that it has the power to transfer damages claims resulting from judicial review proceedings to the County Court. The tribunal held that its incidental powers mirror those enjoyed by the High Court, which routinely transf ...
10th January 2022Ex-partners don’t retain EU law residence rights after domestic abuse
Singh (EEA; EFMs) [2021] UKUT 319 (IAC) is the latest instalment from the Upper Tribunal on EU free movement law in outstanding cases from before Brexit — specifically, retained rights of residence for “durable partners”. Mr Singh ha ...
10th January 2022Court of Appeal game-changer for validity and continuous residence
Masquerading as a somewhat niche decision about non-payment of the Immigration Health Surcharge, R (Afzal) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 1909 is a beast of a case that: Extends the Mirza exception to retrospective invali ...
23rd December 2021Seeking asylum isn’t illegal yet, criminal courts confirm, quashing small boat convictions
The Court of Appeal has quashed the convictions of three asylum seekers jailed for between two and six years for assisting unlawful immigration after piloting small boats across the English Channel. The case is Bani v The Crown [2021] EWCA Crim 1958. ...
22nd December 2021Restricted leave and Russian justice: when is refusing ILR irrational?
How should the Home Secretary deal with asylum seekers who are excluded from the protection of the Refugee Convention but cannot be deported? Since 2011, the restricted leave policy has sought to address that question. Restricted by name and restricti ...
22nd December 2021No EU citizenship, no extended family members
In Sabina Begum v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 1878 the Court of Appeal considered whether an extended family member, hoping to stay in the UK with their EEA citizen sponsor, can do so when the sponsor only acquired that ...
21st December 2021European Court of Human Rights considers fairness of remote hearings
In the case of Jallow v Norway (application no. 36516/19), the European Court of Human Rights looked at what is quite a familiar and popular topic at present: the fairness of conducting hearings remotely. In this case, the court found that the remote ...
20th December 2021Windrush victims win citizenship rule waiver
Two victims of the Windrush scandal have won a High Court challenge arguing for citizenship law to be applied more leniently in special cases like theirs. Mr Justice Bourne held today that a seemingly inflexible provision of British nationality law re ...
16th December 2021Home Office immigration bail powers upheld
In Kaitey v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 1875 the Court of Appeal has upheld the High Court’s decision that the power to set immigration bail exists even when a person cannot be lawfully detained. As Alex commented at t ...
14th December 2021