Rather harsh but perhaps inevitable decision by Mr Justice Haddon Cave on a student left in the lurch when the start date for her course was changed at the last minute. International students really do get a raw deal from the rigidities of our increasingly absurd immigration system. The official headnote reads:

The common law duty of fairness is essentially about procedural fairness. There is no absolute duty at common law to make decisions which are substantively “fair”. The Court will not interfere with decisions which are objected to as being substantively unfair, except the decision in question falls foul of the Wednesbury test i.e. that no reasonable decision-maker or public body could have arrived at such a decision.

It is a matter for the Secretary of State whether she exercises her residual discretion. The exercise of such residual discretion, which does not appear in the Immigration Rules, is absolutely a matter for the Secretary of State and nobody else, including the Tribunal – Abdi [1996] Imm AR 148.