All Articles: Human rights

In a case that in some ways exceptional but in many ways entirely ordinary, the UK Border Agency this week rejected an asylum claim by a young Afghan man. The reason the case was exceptional is that he had previously worked with the British armed forces and been horrendously injured...

4th October 2012
BY Colin Yeo

  As the third in a series of blog posts on the radical new July 2012 immigration rules we turn now to the Home Secretary’s attempt to “define” the right to family and private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is incorporated into our domestic law in...

15th August 2012
BY Claire Physsas

Two cases were reported very recently from the Upper Tribunal both looking at the impact of family court proceedings and orders on immigration proceedings and vice versa.  The first case of Nimako-Boateng (residence orders – Anton considered) [2012] UKUT 00216(IAC) is dealt with in this post leaving the second case...

10th July 2012
BY Sarah Pinder

When I attempted to read Kafka’s The Castle I gave up halfway* through on the basis that the castle K strives to reach was a metaphor for the text of the book itself, which was impenetrable. I tried to tell myself afterwards that Kafka had not wanted me to reach...

9th July 2012
BY Colin Yeo

The recent Supreme Court cases of HH, PH & BH [2012] UKSC 25 did not concern the deportation or expulsion of one or both parents, but rather their extradition. In HH, an European Arrest Warrant had been issued in respect of a Polish mother of 5 children, aged between 21 and 3...

5th July 2012
BY Julia Gasparro

Fresh off the press is the Government’s Statement of Intent: Family Migration which proposes not just to change but to direct the way in which the UKBA and Courts decide Article 8 cases. FM has recently discussed whether it is legally permissible to do this but, for the time being...

13th June 2012
BY Iain Palmer

Not very soft at all. Paragraph 364 of the Immigration Rules, which governs both the UK Border Agency and to a significant extent the immigration tribunal and courts, states that, subject to human rights law (an important proviso), there is a presumption in favour of deportation where the Home Office...

10th June 2012
BY Free Movement

The BBC is today reporting that Theresa May intends on Monday to introduce new guidelines telling judges what to think about Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 8 is the right to a private and family life and is worth quoting in full: 1. Everyone has...

10th June 2012
BY Free Movement

Some time ago, I put up an angry post (it is never a good idea to publish in anger) about the case of  GS (Article 3 – health exceptionality) India [2011] UKUT 35 (IAC), in which it was held that a diabetic man on dialysis who would be painfully and unpleasantly dead...

17th May 2012
BY Free Movement

In an interesting recent ruling, (Zarkasi v Anindita & Anor [2012] UKEAT 0400_11_1801) the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) considered an appeal from a trafficked domestic worker whose claim for unfair dismissal against her employer had been dismissed by the Employment Tribunal (ET). The ET had held that the contract of...

22nd March 2012
BY Richard Bennett

The Court of Appeal has in the case of Miah v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 261 rejected the idea of there being a free standing ‘near miss’ argument in immigration cases where the applicant falls just short of the requirements of the rules. As in...

14th March 2012
BY Free Movement

He said it so sympathetically, it made it all the worse: “This is a fast moving area of law, we understand that, but you might want to take a look at a case we reported last week.”   That was last month now, the speaker was President Mr Justice Blake...

13th March 2012
BY Colin Yeo

In D v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 39 (31 January 2012) the Court of Appeal upheld the determinations of both the First Tier and Upper Tribunals in finding the Maslov ‘very serious reasons for justifying the expulsion of a foreign national’ criterion (Maslov at...

13th February 2012
BY Iain Palmer

The Government has finally gotten around to amending the Immigration Rules to make them a bit less human rightsy looking. This follows a number of pledges from David Cameron, Theresa May and Damian Green to do so. Paragraph 395C of the rules is to be deleted, as predicted here on...

20th January 2012
BY Free Movement

The Hegelian dialectic is sometimes expressed as thesis followed by anti-thesis followed in turn by synthesis. Over time, compromise is the outcome. A tendency towards the middle ground can often be seen in human rights case law and immigration policy. A radical new case is handed down or law is...

25th November 2011
BY Free Movement

The Government’s plan massively to increase the minimum income threshold required to sponsor family members to the UK came one step closer yesterday with the publication of a report by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC). The full report can be accessed here. Analysis by Alan Travis of The Guardian can be...

17th November 2011
BY Free Movement

My old pupil master, Ian Lewis, helpfully reminded me the other day that the deadline for the Human Rights Commission is approaching: 11 November 2011. With Remembrance Day and International Corduroy Day, 11/11/11 is going to be busy. The discussion paper for the Commission can be found here. The cat...

8th November 2011
BY Free Movement

UPDATE: SEE LATEST POST. Following a hell of a lot of confused, confusing and anguished comments on my last post on Quila, I thought it might be helpful to set out my take on the effect of Quila. The first thing to say is that I would be very wary...

18th October 2011
BY Free Movement

R (on the application of Elayathamby) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWHC 2182 (Admin) (11 August 2011) The case concerned a challenge to the removal of a mandate refugee to the Republic of Cyprus under the Dublin Regulations II. In a judgment by Mr Justice Sales, the...

11th August 2011
BY Claire Physsas

The cases of Sufi and Elmi v UK (Applications nos. 8319/07 and 11449/07) have been allowed by the European Court of Human Rights. This is a major judgment on return to Somalia and the conditions there. The press release can be found here and the judgment here (Word version here, BAILII version...

28th June 2011
BY Free Movement

Ever since the mysterious disappearance of the IAA Gender Guidelines from the old IAA website, there has been an absence of good guidance to immigration judges on gender issues in an immigration context. The Equal Treatment Benchbook has a very good chapter on women and equality generally but it does...

13th May 2011
BY Free Movement

I have had to redraft this post, which had been intended to be a good news story about a positive development at the UK Border Agency and which I had scheduled for Monday morning. A nice start to the week, thought I. However, late last week it transpired that the...

6th April 2011
BY Free Movement

There are many illegal immigrants who have come forward to the Home Office, made themselves known, made an application to remain in the UK and then been refused and politely asked to leave the country. Nothing wrong with that, you might think. There are in fact two very serious problems,...

11th February 2011
BY Colin Yeo

The European Court of Human Rights has just held that it is unlawful to send asylum seekers to Greece under what is widely known as the ‘Dublin II’ Regulation for their asylum claims to be processed there. The case is MSS v Greece and Belgium, no. 30696/09, 21 January 2010 (also...

21st January 2011
BY Free Movement

Yet more good news, this time for children and their parents. In LD (Article 8 best interests of child) Zimbabwe [2010] UKUT 278 (IAC) the President of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the Upper Tribunal has found that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is highly...

12th August 2010
BY Free Movement

Some tremendously good news for many refugees: in the new case of FH (Post-flight spouses) Iran [2010] UKUT 275 (IAC) the tribunal has found that Article 8 appeals by the spouses of refugees who married the refugee after the refugee left the country of origin should normally be allowed. Ever...

11th August 2010
BY Free Movement

The Home Office has announced that Certificates of Approval will be scrapped in late 2010 or early 2011. This is a belated implementation of the House of Lords judgment in Baiai, handed down exactly two years ago tomorrow, in which their Lordships held that the scheme requiring foreign nationals to...

29th July 2010
BY Free Movement

The related House of Lords decisions of June 2008 (Beoku-Betts, Chikwamba and EB (Kosovo)) should have brought about a sea change in the approach of the Home Office and the immigration tribunal to human rights issues. While there have been improvements in the respect given to fundamental human rights, there...

15th July 2010
BY Free Movement

UPDATE: see proper post here with analysis. Sorry for the headline, which is in fact an accurate description of what has happened. Although from the half of the judgment I’ve managed to read so far, their Lordships prefer to refer to ‘practising homosexuals’. A bit like the apocryphal ‘popular beat...

7th July 2010
BY Free Movement

The appeal against the Home Office interpretation of the Points Based System has succeeded in the Court of Appeal. Regular readers may remember I went along to and reported on part of the hearing. The case is Secretary of State for the Home Department v Pankina [2010] EWCA Civ 719....

23rd June 2010
BY Free Movement

The Court of Appeal has again revisited the vexed question of removals to war torn countries like Somalia in the major new case of HH (Somalia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 426. The issues at stake have also been the subject of a major...

27th April 2010
BY Free Movement

  BA (Nigeria) [2009] UKSC 7 in the Supreme Court did not create a right of appeal against refusal of a human rights claim. A right of appeal to the tribunal can only ever exist where an ‘immigration decision’ is made, as exhaustively and (almost*) exclusively defined at section 82 of...

12th April 2010
BY Free Movement

This is another from last week’s luggage carousel – I’m still catching up, I’m afraid. In the case of JA (Ivory Coast) & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] EWCA Civ 1353 the Court of Appeal has allowed the appeal of a woman with HIV/AIDS (albeit only...

22nd December 2009
BY Free Movement

The Court of Appeal has given the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal another good ticking off. The case is AG (Eritrea) v SSHD and, frankly, is probably of no interest whatsoever to anyone except geeky immigration lawyers such as myself. However, it’s another piece of objective proof that the current AIT...

10th August 2007
BY Free Movement
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