Last year the Court of Justice of the European Union handed down judgment in the case of McCarthy v United Kingdom C-202/13. In some ways it is a very straightforward case: the UK is not permitted to require residence card holding family members of EEA nationals to apply for yet further...
On 15th November 2011, the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘the CJEU’) handed down its judgment in the case of Dereci (C-256/11). This was a much awaited judgment after the ‘Zambrano and Article 20’ revolution was dampened by McCarthy (see here for previous posts in relation to Zambrano and here for McCarthy). As a quick reminder, Article 20(1) of the TFEU, with which...
The hotly anticipated (er, by EU law geeks and the parties mainly) judgment in McCarthy v United Kingdom (Case C-434/09) is now out. The appeal was dismissed: dual nationals living in a country of their nationality who have never exercised free movement rights cannot rely on the Citizens’ Directive (2004/38) or...
An Albanian national was mistakenly allowed to enter the UK by an immigration officer who used a stamp described by the Home Office Presenting Officer as “a stamp which is regularly encountered, but the use of which is shrouded in mystery”. As a result, he did not meet the requirements...
The short answer is that we do not know. But it is possible to make some informed guesses. In this post I try to do just that, based on a Twitter thread from a few days ago and some feedback from that. Page contentsEvidence on refugee decision-makingDeterrence does not workIs the...
Strategic litigation is a hot topic. Jolyon Maugham’s controversial Good Law Project provokes a visceral marmite effect. Some people absolute love it. Some, not so much. Sometimes referred to as ‘impact’, ‘test case’ or ‘public interest’ litigation, the idea that legal cases can be brought in order to achieve a...
In case C-165/16 Lounes, the Court of Justice of the European Union found that EU citizens who moved to the UK to exercise free movement rights and later naturalised as British (while also keeping their EU nationality) retain their free movement rights, even after naturalisation. This is particularly helpful for...
The DeSouza case raised complex issues of citizenship, identity and implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, but at the heart of the case was an immigration matter and a family who have faced a brutal uphill struggle to live together in the UK, like so many others. Last week, the...
The government continues to keep us immigration lawyers on our toes, and everyone else completely flummoxed, with yet another statement of changes to the Immigration Rules. Thankfully, many of these changes are welcome as they plug gaps in the EU Settlement Scheme. But it is difficult to keep up with...
The Court of Appeal has confirmed that in order to benefit from the Surinder Singh principle, the family involved must have genuinely resided in another EU country and have created or fortified their family life there. In Kaur & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA...
The status orange weather warning was justified. On Stormont Hill in east Belfast we were exposed to the full blast of Storm Boris as it blustered fiercely around us. So the Irish Times opened its report on the recent visit of the Prime Minister to Belfast. However fierce Storm Boris...
Most people born in Northern Ireland have or are entitled to dual citizenship, British and Irish. Generally people apply for the passport of the country which they identify with — nationalists for Irish passports, unionists for British — and are never troubled by the legal fact that they may technically...
The judgment in Zambrano, and the following cases mentioned in the previous unit make it clear that EU member states have to allow primary carers of EU nationals to remain in their territory if not doing so would compel EU nationals to leave. How is compulsion assessed, then? The courts...
Page contentsThe McCarthy caseFactsJudgmentThe Dereci caseFactsJudgmentThe Iida caseFactsJudgmentThe Ahmed case The McCarthy case Zambrano was handed down in March 2011. It was followed a couple of months later by the case of C-434/09 McCarthy v UK. Facts Mrs McCarthy, a national of the United Kingdom, was also an Irish national. She...
The government has announced that a new immigration regulation chief will take office later this year, filling a post left vacant since 2015. John Tuckett, a former submarine commander now in charge of the Marine Management Organisation, will become Immigration Services Commissioner this summer. The role has been vacant since...
A new Immigration Services Commissioner will finally be appointed in 2019 — over three years after the last commissioner stood down. There has been no leader at the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, which regulates over 3,000 registered immigration advisers, since late 2015. Deputy commissioner Dr Ian Leigh wrote...
Yet again the Home Office has come under fire for its treatment of a European citizen, this time for denying an EEA residence card to the American husband of an Irish national living in Northern Ireland. The case of Gemma Capparelli and her husband was reported in the Guardian, and...
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 movement rights. The Upper Tribunal ruled that a...
The latest, and presumably last, amendments to the EEA Regulations were laid before Parliament on 3 July 2018. The Immigration (European Economic Area) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 (SI 2018 No. 801) will come into force on 24 July 2018. Implementing a number of cases decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union,...
Official headnote to Yussuf (meaning of “liable to deportation”) [2018] UKUT 117 (IAC): Section 32 of the UK Borders Act 2007 impliedly amends section 3(5)(a) of the Immigration Act 1971 by (a) removing the function of the Secretary of State of deeming a person’s deportation to be conducive to the public...
A woman from Northern Ireland who refuses to identify as British in order to facilitate her husband’s immigration application has succeeded in her First-tier Tribunal challenge against the refusal of a residence card. The Home Office had told Emma DeSouza, who is from Magherafelt and holds an Irish passport, that...
What can immigration lawyers do when immigration law is uncertain? This was not, admittedly, the advertised theme of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association annual seminar on free movement, which took place on 4 October. But the enervating effects of unpredictability and ambiguity in immigration law and policy ran through most...
Pretty obscure looking at first glance, this one: TM (EEA nationals – meaning; NI practitioners : Zimbabwe) [2017] UKUT 165 (IAC). So much so I confess I overlooked it. Firstly, some dual national British-EEA nationals were protected from the UK’s arguably over zealous implementation of McCarthy. I’ve had to advise on...
The question of what rights are enjoyed by an EU citizen who naturalises as a British citizen and becomes a dual citizen has become a critically important one in the context of Brexit. There is huge uncertainty amongst EU citizens and their family members living in the UK about their future...
Where a family member is not adjudged to have retained rights of residence under Directive 2004/38 then it may in some cases be possible to fall back on derived rights of residence. These do not lead to the acquisition of permanent residence in EU law but something may be better...
Some EEA nationals or family members may wish to naturalise as British citizens. This is a very personal decision. However, it is important to be careful because the UK Government now says that the family members of dual citizens cannot benefit from EU free movement law. This means that any...
Page contentsNo change, for nowWhat will happen to EEA nationals and family members?Is it worth applying for residence documents now?Should EEA nationals apply for naturalisation as British citizens? No change, for now The vote in the referendum on 23 June 2016 for the UK to leave the European Union had...
By Matthew Evans, Director, AIRE Centre Page contentsIntroductionWhat can EEA nationals and their family members residing in the UK do now to protect their position?Proving their rightsDelaysComprehensive Sickness InsuranceWhat other evidence do I need to include?Qualifying for permanent residence (EEA(PR))Qualifying as a worker (EEA(QP))Qualifying as someone who is self-employed (EEA(QP))Qualifying as...
Several new guidance documents on EU law free movement cases have been published by the Home Office over the last few days. They are: EEA family permits: guidance for entry clearance officers. This is an entirely new document aimed at Entry Clearance Officers abroad on how to assess and decide...
On 24 June 2016 the right to live in the United Kingdom for over 3 million people of its people was suddenly cast into doubt. If generous provision is not made for them we are looking at the biggest mass expulsion of population since 1290, when Edward I infamously ordered...
Page contentsRights of Entry and ResidenceIntroductionRights of entry and residenceExclusion and expulsionCitizenshipFuture enlargement Rights of Entry and Residence By Steve Peers, University of Essex, 17 May 2016 Introduction The free movement of EU citizens to the UK (and vice versa) is a key feature of the UK’s EU membership. However,...
EU law free movement rights depend on whether a person meets the relevant criteria, not whether an application has been made and granted. EU law is quite different to domestic UK immigration law in this way; in UK immigration law an application must be made and granted before the person...
There are several different types of EU residence document. The general rule is that an EU national or family member does not need to apply for and possess a residence document in order to be lawfully able to enter and reside in the UK. However, there are times when it...
I just came across a new (to me, at any rate) Home Office policy document entitled European Economic Area (EEA) case law and appeals which sets out the Home Office interpretation of various key EU law cases including Steymann, Levin, Antonissen, Surinder Singh, Eind, O and S v Netherlands, McCarthy, Reyes and others....
Welcome to the January 2015 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month marks a whole year of podcasts, and they have been quite a success so far, with nearly 22,000 unique downloads in total. More subjectively, several people have mentioned them to when I’ve been out and about,...
The Irish High Court has awarded a claimant over €100,000 in damages against the Irish government for breach of EU law free movement rights. The case is an example of the award of damages awarded for losses caused by a Member State breaching EU law under the Francovich (C-6/90 and...
Some information about the shadowy Upper Tribunal Reporting Committee shared with me by the indefatigable Shoaib Khan, obtained through a Freedom of Information request: The current members of the reporting committee are: Mr Justice McCloskey (President), Mr C M G Ockelton (Vice President), Upper Tribunal Judge Peter Lane (Chair), Upper...
Judgment has finally been handed down in the latest test case on Dublin removals to Italy, Tabrizagh and others v SSHD [2014] EWHC 1914 (Admin) and although it is on any view bad news, there is much in it to consider. In a carefully reasoned and frankly impressive decision the...
