Author Archive
Immigration Rules on humanitarian protection conflict with EU law
The Upper Tribunal has ruled that Paragraph 339C of the Immigration Rules fails to accurately transpose the requirements of the Qualification Directive governing the grant of humanitarian protection. The outcome means that asylum seekers who face seri ...
20th November 2018Meek Court of Appeal takes Home Office at its word
In R (Safeer) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 2518 the Court of Appeal has misdirected itself on how to approach factual disputes in the context of an application for judicial review. The error did not affect the result be ...
19th November 2018Home Office “looking for reasons not to release” man suffering from severe mental illness
A judge has rebuked the Home Office for failing to release an asylum seeker despite receiving a “Rule 35” medical report stating that he was suffering from a severe mental illness which had deteriorated because of detention. In R (Bah) v S ...
7th November 2018Court of Appeal says no conflict between old Afghan country guidance and Strasbourg case law
In ST (Afghanistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 2382, the Court of Appeal has ruled that the First-tier Tribunal correctly applied both domestic and Strasbourg case law on international relocation to Kabul. The argumen ...
1st November 2018Failure to carry out proper medical assessment makes detention unlawful
This case is an unlawful detention claim based on shocking failures by the Home Office to comply with rules on how victims of torture and trafficking should be treated. In R (SW) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 2684 (Admin), t ...
25th October 2018High Court upholds Home Secretary’s decision to cancel passports of British citizens
This case demonstrates that possession of a British passport is precarious. Having a passport is a privilege, not a right, and the Home Secretary can exercise his power under the royal prerogative to cancel a passport if he thinks it is in the public ...
19th October 2018Court of Appeal says statelessness must be proved on balance of probabilities
In AS (Guinea) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 2234, the Court of Appeal has in effect rebuffed an attempt by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to make it easier to establish statelessness. The court ruled that the sta ...
19th October 2018Strasbourg litigants not a “particular social group” under the Refugee Convention
C‑652/16 Nigyar Rauf Kaza Ahmedbekova and Rauf Emin Ogla Ahmedbekov v Zamestnik-predsedatel na Darzhavna agentsia za bezhantsite is a novel attempt to introduce the status of being involved in a case before the European Court of Human Rights as a gr ...
15th October 2018Help Refugees judgment: too little, too late for Calais children?
This is the second of two Court of Appeal cases this year about whether the Home Office behaved unlawfully towards vulnerable child asylum seekers during and after the demolition of the Calais refugee camp in 2016. The first appeal, R (Citizens UK) v ...
5th October 2018Losing subsidiary protection because of “serious crime”
In C-369/17 Ahmed, the Court of Justice of the European Union has held that member states must take account of all the circumstances of the crime committed by an individual before deciding that it is a “serious crime” which justifies exclu ...
19th September 2018Court of Appeal rules that Paposhvili decision has no effect on Article 8 medical cases
The Court of Appeal has ruled that the Strasbourg decision in Paposhvili v Belgium (application no. 41738/10) has no effect on cases where someone relies on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights to claim that they should not be remove ...
10th September 2018High Court rejects complaint about failure to treat victim of trafficking
In R (H) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 2191 (Admin) the High Court has rejected two complaints about how the Home Office recognises and cares for trafficking victims in detention. First, the claimant argued that Rule 34 and ...
24th August 2018Good result on retained residence rights for non-EU spouses who give up work temporarily
The Upper Tribunal has ruled that the term “worker” in the regulations concerning the rights of residence retained by non-EEA nationals if they divorce their EEA spouse includes jobseekers. This means that when someone who has given up work during ...
23rd August 2018Upper Tribunal: EU law no help to dual nationals who have never exercised free movement rights
Kovacevic (British citizen – Art 21 TFEU) Croatia [2018] UKUT 273 (IAC) is about whether EU free movement law protects dual nationals (i.e. someone who is a citizen of the UK and another EU country) who have never exercised their EU free movemen ...
21st August 2018Helpful Court of Appeal judgment on criminal appeals by trafficking victims with old convictions
In R v GS [2018] EWCA Crim 1824 the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) has ruled that victims of trafficking should be allowed to rely on changes to the law and new evidence about their trafficking history when seeking to appeal criminal convictions. ...
17th August 2018Upper Tribunal refuses asylum to Ukrainian draft evader
In PK (Draft evader; punishment; minimum severity) Ukraine [2018] UKUT 241 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal has refused to protect a Ukrainian draft evader despite acknowledging that there is evidence that taking part in the conflict might involve committing ...
15th August 2018Home Office rebuked for failing to protect trafficking victim
R (CP (Vietnam)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 2122 (Admin) is an example of disgraceful treatment of a trafficking victim by the Home Office. Decision-makers repeatedly ignored evidence that the claimant might be a victim o ...
14th August 2018Of course an online immigration application is valid, Court of Appeal says
R (Singh) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1669 is about how the transitional provisions in the Immigration Rules apply to online applications which must be supported with further evidence sent later by post. The appellant ...
7th August 2018Torture victim wins unlawful detention claim over delay in medical assessment
The High Court has ruled that failure to provide a medical assessment within 24 hours of arrival at a detention centre can make continued detention unlawful. In R (KG) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 1767 (Admin) the court fou ...
20th July 2018Italy responsible for the asylum claim of man extradited to the Netherlands
The Court of Justice of the European Union has taken a strict approach to time limits on take back requests imposed by the Dublin III Regulation. In case C‑213/17 X v Staatssecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie, the court ruled that Italy had respon ...
16th July 2018Irish sex offender’s request to be deported denied
R (Connell) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1329 is about whether the Home Secretary has a duty, imposed by Parliament, to deport foreign criminals even if they are EEA nationals. The Court of Appeal ruled that the legisla ...
3rd July 2018Court prefers evidence of detention centre doctor in giving only nominal damages for a year’s unlawful detention
R (Aboro) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 1436 (Admin) is an unlawful detention claim about how conflicting psychiatric evidence should be interpreted. The Secretary of State relied upon the evidence of a detention centre doct ...
26th June 2018Residence rights for divorced non-EU citizens improve as Home Secretary concedes appeal
Baigazieva v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1088 is about what happens to a non-EEA citizen spouse if they divorce their EEA citizen partner. Article 13(2) of the Citizens Rights Directive 2004 lays down a set of criteria o ...
14th June 2018Woman denied passport, then detained for failure to leave UK
R (Eroje) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 1010 (Admin) is a shocking story of Home Office incompetence which led to the unnecessary and unlawful detention of someone who had made repeated attempts to leave the UK voluntarily. ...
29th May 2018The limits of consent orders: agreement to consider something irrelevant has no effect
Ararso v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 845 is an unusual appeal about the extent to which the Home Office must take account of orders made in previous judicial review proceedings when deciding to re-detain someone. The Cou ...
10th May 2018Court of Appeal refuses to put burden of proof on slavery victims in criminal trials
MK and Gega v R [2018] EWCA Crim 667 is about who should face the burden of proof when a criminal defendant relies on the new “victim of slavery/trafficking” defence in the Modern Slavery Act 2015. In the first appellate judgment on this issue, th ...
9th April 2018Unlawful delays by the Home Office: a line in the sand
Secretary of State for the Home Department v Said [2018] EWCA Civ 627 is about how long the Home Office can delay making an immigration decision before the applicants can successfully claim for damages under the Human Rights Act 1998. The Home Office ...
5th April 2018Proving that immigration officers have used excessive force
Shittu v The Home Office [2017] EWCA Civ 1748 is a sad case which illustrates how difficult it is to bring legal challenges against the Home Office for using excessive force against migrants during the removal process. Civil claims against the Secret ...
19th December 2017