What’s another few months when you’ve been waiting two decades? For the past 20 years, a group of Iraqi and Syrian Kurds have been marooned on a British military base in Cyprus, recognised as refugees but denied settlement in the UK. In R (Tag Eldin Ramadan Bashir and others) v...
The Supreme Court yesterday held in the case of B (Algeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] UKSC 5 that the Home Office cannot impose bail conditions on a migrant who cannot be lawfully detained. Or, at least, the Home Office could not do so at the...
The Supreme Court has opened up British citizenship by double descent to all children born to British women in non-Commonwealth countries between 1949 and 1983. Delivering a judgment which makes no attempt to disguise his academic interests as a historian, Lord Sumption delivered a simple solution to a question of...
A Supreme Court decision handed down today is good news for people who have had their British citizenship taken away because it was obtained under false pretences. The Home Office has accepted that in most cases, deprivation rather than nullity is the correct process. Deprivation gives people stripped of citizenship...
Just catching up on the Australian High Court (their Supreme Court) case on the ban on dual citizenship for holders of public office. If you have not been following it, the Australian constitution bans dual citizens from holding public office. The nationality laws of many countries, including the UK, automatically...
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...
Today, Anti-Slavery Day, the Supreme Court has handed down judgments in cases that look at the extent to which diplomatic and state immunity allow diplomats to traffic and enslave their domestic workers with impunity. Traffickers will sleep a little less easily in their beds tonight. In Reyes v Al-Malki [2017]...
The Supreme Court has handed down its judgement in the case of Sadovska and another (Appellants) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) (Scotland) [2017] UKSC 54. In unanimously allowing the appeal, the Supreme Court ruled that the burden of proof of establishing a ‘marriage of convenience’ falls...
In R (Kiarie and Byndloss) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] UKSC 42 the Supreme Court has struck down “deport first, appeal later” certificates for two foreign criminals. The Home Office had made use of new rules in the Immigration Act 2014 which force some appellants to...
Shortly after Christmas in 2009, a young woman from Somalia flew into Stanstead and claimed asylum. She had just turned 18. As later accepted by the Home Office, she had experienced severe depredations in her home country. This included her rape at the age of six in the presence of...
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...
Very interesting and detailed reflections on the MM case in the Supreme Court on the spouse minimum income rule. Family and spousal migration is only one part of migration policy, and there is the broader issue of what values migration policy should serve generally. In recent political argument in the...
The Supreme Court has granted permission to appeal against the Court of Appeal case of R.(On the Application of Hysaj) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWCA Civ 1195. On 27 February 2017, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom granted permission to the appellants, as to the...
In linked judgments in the case of MM and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] UKSC 10, known to many as just “the MM case,” the Supreme Court has this morning upheld in principle the Minimum Income Rule which requires an income of at least £18,600...
The Supreme Court ruled today by a majority of 8-3 that an Act of Parliament is needed for the UK Government to trigger Article 50 and formally begin the process of leaving the EU. Giving the leading judgment the President of the Court, Lord Neuberger, emphasised that the judgment was...
The Supreme Court has given judgment in the case of Mirza v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] UKSC 63. The case concerned the effect of section 3C of the Immigration Act 1971 as amended and whether it extends leave where an applicant for leave is found later...
The Supreme Court has handed down the long awaited judgments in Makhlouf v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] UKSC 59 on the impact of deportation on affected children and Hesham Ali v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] UKSC 60 on the weight to be...
The Supreme Court has decided that the historic failure of British nationality law to confer automatic citizenship on a child born out of wedlock was discriminatory, it has continuing consequences which breached a person’s human rights in a discriminatory way and that denying such a person British citizenship now is...
The Supreme Court has referred an interesting although fairly unusual question to the Court of Justice of the European Union on the entitlement to subsidiary protection of a person who has suffered awful past persecution. The full question (referring to the Qualification Directive) is: “Does article 2(e), read with article...
This judgment is of historic interest only as the right of appeal under consideration by the court was re-written by the Immigration Act 2014 anyway. For what it is worth, the old section 83 did not give a right of appeal against refusal of asylum to a person who already...
In short the court concludes that immigration status as a domestic worker is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010. The court suggests that the law should be amended to remedy this protection gap and refers to the particular vulnerability of migrants on tied visas and the review...
As if Michael Gove MP needed further reminding, in wake of Colin Yeo’s appearance on World at One on Wednesday where he pointed out the fundamental error of the Justice Secretary’s assertion that Britain cannot deport EEA nationals with a criminal record, the Supreme Court in R (on the application...
The Supreme Court has allowed the appeal against the residence test for legal aid, overturning the Court of Appeal judgment in favour of the Home Office. The basis for the Supreme Court’s decision is that the Lord Chancellor, Chris Grayling at that time, did not have the legal power to...
In a very interesting judgment the Canadian Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional the criminal offence of organising, inducing, aiding or abetting undocumented entry. The case is R. v. Appulonappa – SCC Cases (Lexus). This post reviews that case and then goes on to consider whether similar reasoning might here in...
Some three years after the radical rewriting of the Immigration Rules for families in 2012, the Supreme Court has granted permission to appeal in two important cases, SS (Congo) [2015] EWCA Civ 387 and Agyarko [2015] EWCA Civ 440. SS (Congo) is reported to be linked with the MM case...
The Supreme Court has dismissed the challenge brought against the introduction of pre-entry English language testing for spouses seeking to enter the UK as the family members of British citizens and those present and settled in the UK. The formal title of the case is R (on the applications of...
The Supreme Court has given judgment in the case of Mandalia v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] UKSC 59 about the interpretation and application of the Home Office’s Points Based System evidential flexibility policy. Regular followers of the blog will be familiar with this policy, which was...
The case of N v SSHD will stand: the Supreme Court has refused permission to appeal (see p9) from the Court of Appeal in the linked medical treatment cases on Article 3 ECHR with the words: With regret, the Panel can foresee no reasonable prospect of this Court departing from...
The UK’s complex deportation regime, involving intertwined immigration rules, statute and UK and ECHR case law, is finally to be considered by Supreme Court (see page 7). Permission to appeal to the Supreme Court has been granted in three separate cases. In the courts below these were: Secretary of State...
The Supreme Court yesterday handed down judgment in TN, MA and AA (Afghanistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] UKSC 40, in which the Court held that a breach of the family tracing duty in Regulation 6 of the Asylum Seekers (Reception Conditions) Regulations 2005 does not...
Update: see report of Supreme Court judgment here. Official confirmation (bottom of page 2) from the Supreme Court that permission to appeal has been granted. There is no date listed yet but you will be able to track progress on the Supreme Court website in the current cases section.
...The Supreme Court has granted permission to appeal in the case of MP (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 829 and allocated reference number UKSC 2015/0027. Progress can be tracked on the Supreme Court website but the case does not yet appear there....
Rather than write my own detailed piece on the Supreme Court’s judgment in Pham v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] UKSC 19 I’m mainly going to refer you an excellent piece by Simon Cox on the Open Societies Foundation website: Case Watch: UK Supreme Court Backs Government...
Many practitioners are concerned about the increasing use of draconian powers to deprive people of their citizenship and the related ‘evil of statelessness’ (which is the subject of the UNCHR’s latest campaign.) Last week, a 7-member Supreme Court panel heard the latest round of arguments on these issues in the...
The Supreme Court will today hear a case, Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) v B2 (Appellant), concerning the definition of statelessness in international law and in which the Secretary of State’s power under section 40 (2) of the British Nationality Act 1981 to deprive a naturalised British...
The case of Rodriguez, Mandalia and Patel [2014] EWCA Civ 2 is to be reconsidered by the Supreme Court, this months grants of permission reveals. The case concerns the ‘evidential flexibility’ policy that I think was first publicly revealed here on Free Movement. It is a chance for the Supreme...
The Supreme Court has allowed the Secretary of State’s appeal against the Court of Appeal judgment in the case of R (on the application of Fitzroy George) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] UKSC 28. The Court of Appeal’s judgment was previously covered here on Free Movement....
Any asylum practitioner is likely to come across cases where, rather than investigate the merits of an asylum claim, the Home Office seeks to return their client to a third country elsewhere in the European Union deemed under the Dublin II Regulation to have prior responsibility for assessing the claim,...
Last week, the Supreme Court handed down judgment in Patel, Alam & Anwar v SSHD [2013] UKSC 72, in which Lord Carnwath decided a number of important points affecting the way in which such Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights ‘fallback’ arguments are to be decided.
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