There can be few immigration practitioners who do not presently encounter decisions in relation to applications made on the basis of peoples’ private and family life which do not carry the right of appeal. In recent years the prevailing tendency has become to segregate decisions, where the applicant is an...
A child referred to in court only as “Maya” is six years old. She has Spina Bifida and is very severely disabled. She also has severe learning difficulties and extremely complex needs. For the last five years she has received highly specialised medical treatment and has attended a special school...
UPDATE: Haleemudeen on remittal to UT: SoS conceded Edgehill applied, no need for deference to post-July 2012 and found disproportionate on Art 8 — Mansfield Chambers (@MansfieldImm) June 20, 2014 The facts of Haleemudeen v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 558 reveal another of those...
The Civil Legal Aid (Remuneration) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2014 came into force on 22 April 2014 with the effect that judicial review proceedings commenced on or after that day will not be funded unless: (a) the High Court or Upper Tribunal grants permission; or, (b) permission is neither granted...
Official headnote: The requirement to prove the existence of “contracts” in paragraph 41-SD of Appendix A to the immigration rules does not itself require the contracts in question to be contained in documents. There is, however, a need for such contracts to be evidenced in documentary form. The Home Office...
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....
In a new case called NA (UT rule 45: Singh v Belgium) Iran [2014] UKUT 205 (IAC), heard by the President and Dr Storey, the Upper Tribunal has perhaps inadvertently posed a number of problems for practitioners. The issues are all quite distinct, making the case something of a legal chimera. One...
Welcome to the April 2014 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month’s update podcast covers some asylum and human rights updates on military service and asylum, the big win for Refugee Action on asylum support levels, an interesting grant of permission by the Court of Appeal on health...
Welcome to the March 2014 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month’s update covers some immigration news updates, a couple of asylum updates, some hefty EU law updates and a few more procedural issues for lawyers. The material is all drawn from the March blog posts on...
Welcome to the February 2014 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month’s update covers a range of subjects including some immigration news updates on asylum issues, some legal updates including two recent Supreme Court decisions and, briefly, some practical questions on costs, visit appeals or judicial reviews...
The online CPD training and membership package on Free Movement is nearly ready for a public launch, hopefully next week if the final preparations go well. In advance, I’m making the update podcasts that go with the update CPD courses available to all readers for free. I hope these will...
This jumped out at me from the newspaper the other day: People who may find it difficult to give their best possible evidence in a courtroom environment and all child victims will be considered in the pilot areas. This allows them to give evidence and be cross-examined by both prosecution...
Ved and another (appealable decisions; permission applications; Basnet) [2014] UKUT 150 (IAC) is a new case from the Upper Tribunal on the vexed issue of immigration applications the Home Office considers to be invalid. The tribunal takes the view that a Home Office decision that an application is invalid cannot...
When the Immigration Rules for families were changed in July 2012, it was the minimum income threshold that rightly attracted the most attention. It has caused huge misery and has divided many loving families, sometimes separating children from parents. It is particularly harsh because the income threshold is set so...
The present Government has declared its intention to create a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants. True to its word, the Go Home vans, the ‘papers please’ raids on public transport hubs, the targeting of foreign students, the increasingly demented bureaucracy of the immigration rules and the harsh family migration rules are...
The Court of Appeal has in the case of Edgehill & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 402 settled the question of whether the new human rights rules introduced on 9 July 2012 apply to applications made before that date: they do not. Specifically,...
Important grant of permission from the Court of Appeal in six linked cases addressing issues arising from D and N cases at Strasbourg and subsequent treatment by the UK courts. For some legal background see this earlier blog post. In granting permission Maurice Kay LJ says: I have indicated that...
Update: The Daily Record has carried a story about the whole affair. Update 2: And it’s on Buzzfeed now as well. Busy creating some of the new online courses for the new training project, I was looking for something on the unnavigable gov.uk website and came across the Home Office...
The Home Office has managed to use a photo of a child that it wanted to remove from the UK as the face of its campaign to overturn a High Court judgment allowing divided families to be reunited. The news item concerns the controversial minimum income rule that is dividing...
According to the Independent newspaper, scientists have located “the conscience.” It’s in the front part of the brain and is the size of a Brussels’ sprout. For those who object to military service on grounds of conscience, this is where the action happens. The UNHCR’s “Guidelines on Military Service“, published...
Alois Dvorzac died in handcuffs in immigration detention in 2013. He was 84 years old, suffered from Alzheimers and he had been handcuffed for five hours by the time he died. It was a miserable, ignominious end to what Channel 4 has shown us was a rich and varied life. Yesterday...
The story of Yashika Bageerathi has touched many. A bright student brought to the UK by her mother with her siblings to escape domestic violence at home in Mauritius, she has a promising future here if allowed to remain. Because she has turned 18 and is no longer a child, though,...
Very pleased to have played a role in bringing about this review: it was here on Free Movement that the case referred to by May was revealed before being picked up by The Observer. A Home Office document leaked earlier this year revealed how one bisexual asylum seeker was asked...
In another highly critical report on immigration enforcement by the Home Office, the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration John Vine has found that in nearly two thirds of cases (59%) immigration enforcement officers entering business premises lacked the legal authority to do so and in addition were regularly flouting their...
The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has just published a damning report looking at the removals process at the Home Office. That the Home Office is not effective in conducting removals is hardly news to those of us who work in immigration law but even I was surprised by...
On 19 January 2014, Iain Duncan Smith and Theresa May told the Daily Mail that Britain’s generous welfare system should no longer be a ‘magnet’ for citizens of other EU states and that they would be introducing a number of measures aimed at new migrant jobseekers from the European Economic...
In a handy case that arrived just after I’d finished a Court of Appeal skeleton on the same subject, Mr Justice McCloskey has delivered another of his characteristically interesting determinations. This one is MM (unfairness; E & R) Sudan [2014] UKUT 105 (IAC), on the subject of procedural fairness amounting...
Which all leads us to the following devastating question: how did this life, so full of historical resonance, affection and adventure, end up extinguished, in handcuffs, in a British asylum detention centre? Great journalism but very upsetting piece. The Home Office attempt to blame the security contractors is particularly repugnant.
...The Department of Work and Pensions has introduced the Minimum Earnings Threshold ‘(MET)’ as part of the decision making process for determining whether EEA nationals who claim income-based jobseeker’s allowance (JSA(IB)) have retained the status of a ‘worker’. Here I look at what it is, how it works, its intended...
We suggest that if the sureties were aware of x’s illegal status in the UK, they have been complicit in assisting him in defying UK immigration law, and are therefore unsuitable in ensuring he comply with the conditions of bail. Alternatively, if these sureties were unaware of x’s illegal status...
The habitual residence test has been part of the benefits system since 1996. Under the test, new entrants to the UK and returning nationals are required to show that they are habitually resident in the Common Travel Area (the UK, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or the Republic...
