Should the Home Office read all of the supporting evidence sent in with an application? The High Court provided a predictable answer in the case of R (Gayle) v SSHD [2017] EWHC 3385 (Admin), which considered the tragic personal circumstances of the claimant, Marie Gayle, and whether the decision to refuse...
How can you win £266,536.14 in damages and walk away without a penny? If those who should pay succeed in divesting themselves of their assets and if the costs of litigation swallow up all that you do manage to recover. R (Tirkey) v The Director of Legal Aid Casework &...
Last month the Court of Appeal considered the rules governing deportation of foreign criminals. The case is Secretary of State for the Home Department v SC (Jamaica) [2017] EWCA Civ 2112, which concerned a Jamaican national originally granted asylum as a dependant of his mother in 2003. The court considers three...
The legal arguments on family life between adult children and parents are notoriously tricky. The guise in which the issue arose in Pun & Anr (Nepal) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 2106 was whether non-dependent adult children could qualify under the Gurkha policy. The court...
Most domestic workers would prefer to be recognised as workers than labelled as trafficked, and ask to be empowered rather than rescued. But it is often necessary to plead their cases under the rubric of trafficking to secure their protection from exploitation. Cases involving domestic workers are often of considerable interest...
R (Mudibo) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 1949 is yet another decision of the Court of Appeal grappling with the provisions of those familiar nemeses, section 117B and the “insurmountable obstacles” test in EX.1 of Appendix FM. Much of the judgment is unremarkable with the usual mentioning...
In HK, HH, SK and FK v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 1871 the Court of Appeal found that asylum seekers could be returned to Bulgaria under the Dublin III Regulation. Removal would not violate the appellants’ Article 3 rights, despite medical reports on their poor...
In FY (Somalia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 1853, the Court of Appeal refused the deportation of a Somali national on the basis that he would face a real risk of living in circumstances falling below the Article 3 threshold if deported. In doing so, the...
Since April 2015, only very limited types of immigration case can be appealed. In the case of R (AT) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 2589 (Admin), the High Court found that despite what the Immigration Rules say, an application for indefinite leave to remain on...
When is it a breach of Article 3 to remove someone with a severe, possibly terminal, medical condition to a country where they will not receive the care they need? When they’re days away from death? When it will halve their lifespan? What level of pain is required? What constitutes...
In R (HC) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2017] UKSC 73 the Supreme Court decided that Zambrano carers are not eligible for non-contributory benefits which have a “right to reside” test. The benefits affected by the decision are income support, child benefit, child tax credits, and housing and homelessness assistance....
The High Court in R (MS) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 2797 (Admin) has found that in circumstances where a person would have no option but to stay on the streets after release from detention, the Home Office has a duty under Article 3 of the...
Ndidi v the United Kingdom (Application no. 41215/14) had the beginnings of a tabloid splash. A Nigerian national convicted of drug dealing, who had lived in the UK since the age of two, sought to block his deportation by recourse to foreign judges. The European Court of Human Rights disappointed would-be...
The difficulty of presenting asylum claims based on religion is well known. Such claims raise difficult evidential problems, which are addressed in this detailed post by Colin Yeo. But AS (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 1539 seems to pose a novel difficulty: should a claim...
In ND & NT v Spain, the European Court of Human Rights decided that the expulsion of two sub-Saharan migrants from a set of barriers surrounding the Spanish territory of Melilla breached their rights under Article 4 of Protocol 4 ECHR (prohibition of collective expulsions of aliens) and Article 13...
Practitioners commonly rely on the “integration test” in the Immigration Rules to resist an individual’s removal on human rights grounds. The current rules can in some circumstances require a consideration of whether there would be “very significant obstacles” to an individual’s re-integration in that country if they were to be...
On 20 July 2017 the Home Office published changes to the Immigration Rules intended to give effect to findings made by the Supreme Court in MM (Lebanon) & Others v Secretary for the Home Department [2017] UKSC 10 on the Minimum Income Requirement. The new rules come into effect on...
Chowdury and Others v Greece (Application number 21884/15 – the judgment is only available in French. An English-language press summary is available.) The European Court of Human Rights has found that strawberry-pickers in Greece were subjected to forced labour. The Court found that the authorities failed to prevent forced labour...
Well, that did not take long. The Court of Appeal has in the case of NE-A (Nigeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 239 decided that the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in Hesham Ali [2016] UKSC 60 is confined to cases in which the Immigration Rules...
In Butt v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 184 the Court of Appeal considers the weight to be given to the relationship between parents and their adult dependent children in the Article 8 balancing exercise. It is notable – and this was the principal reason the case...
Two interesting and important legal points emerge from the Upper Tribunal’s determination in SF and others (Guidance, post-2014 Act) [2017] UKUT 120 (IAC). The first is on the issue of when, if at all, a British child might be required by immigration policy to leave the UK and the second...
On 13 December 2016, the Grand Chamber handed down its much-awaited decision in Paposhvili v Belgium (Applcn No. 41738/10). The decision: (1) clarifies, widens and provides guidance on the circumstances in which an alien suffering from a serious illness can resist removal under art 3 ECHR; and (2) gives rise...
Free Movement has reported twice on immigration removal centres (IRCs) blocking access to websites informing detainees of their legal rights. HM Chief Inspector of Prisons criticised Haslar IRC two years ago for having the websites of Bail for Immigration Detainees and Amnesty International blocked. What are "prohibited categories" of websites in...
In the cases of Hesham Ali [2016] UKSC 60 and Makhlouf [2016] UKSC 59 the Supreme Court has, finally, given guidance the correct approach to the determination of appeals against deportation decisions. Both the appeals were dismissed and the Home Office prevailed; but that is not the whole story and we...
The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights today published a Memorandum addressed to the UK Immigration Minister, James Brokenshire, in which he condemns the use of anti migrant language and rhetoric by Ministers including David Cameron and Theresa May, criticises discriminatory and disproportionate measures against migrants and expresses disappointment...
This week, Lord Justices Elias, Richards and McCombe sat in the Court of Appeal and heard the first test cases against Section 94B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Section 94B, introduced by the Immigration Act 2014 and which came into force on 28th July 2014, provides the Home...
The Immigration Bill 2015 was published on 17 September 2015. For now, this post provides links to further reading and resources on the Bill and also some commentary on the appeals sections, which are of the most direct interest to immigration lawyers like myself. I may update and perhaps republish the...
The Upper Tribunal has handed down another two cases on the statutory human rights considerations introduced by the Immigration Act 2014. The relationship between Article 8, the Immigration Rules and the statutory considerations is the itch that judges cannot help but scratch, but it is primarily an academic and political...
In Granovski v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 1478 (Admin) HHJ Coe QC sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court rejects the Home Office contention that the best interests of children and private and family life of the applicant and his family could only...
The question of when family and private life exists in a legal sense is an increasingly important one in immigration law as it effectively determines whether a person has a right of appeal against refusal on an immigration application. The Court of Appeal addresses this issue in the case of...
This post is a largely academic one for the lawyers and judges amongst Free Movement readers. The latest case in the interminable parade of cases addressing the interaction of Article 8 and the Immigration Rules is the case of R (on the application of Sunassee) v Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber)...
It is very widely believed that the Human Rights Act stops the UK from deporting foreign criminals whence they came. To a limited extent, there is some truth in this. Some appeals against deportation decisions do succeed on human rights grounds. Not many, though, and none succeed because of the...
The Conservative Party manifesto includes replacement of the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights. We already have a Bill of Rights, so the proposed Conservative version will need to be called something different. Perhaps Bill of Rights 2: The Dark Night Rises. The Bill of Rights of 1689...
In Dube (ss.117A-117D) [2015] UKUT 90 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal expresses its opinions on the new Part 5A of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, introduced by the Immigration Act 2014. The Court of Appeal has already had its say in the case of YM (Uganda) v Secretary of State for...
Bossadi (paragraph 276ADE; suitability; ties) [2015] UKUT 00042 (IAC) is very short but somewhat less than sweet. A panel of the tribunal tries to row back from the earlier case of Ogundimu (Article 8 – new rules) Nigeria [2013] UKUT 60 (IAC) and suggest that the now scrapped (and so...
Unfortunately the Court of Appeal’s judgment in the Article 3 health test cases in GS (India) & Ors v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWCA Civ 40 (30 January 2015) does not change very much for migrants with serious health conditions seeking to remain in the UK.
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