The Court of Appeal has given further guidance on the convoluted and badly drafted statutory presumptions on human rights in UK law. Trying to make sense of interlocking provisions in the UK Borders Act 2007, the Immigration Rules as amended (and amended and amended) and the Immigration Act 2014, the...
The Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner is making substantial changes to its CPD scheme with immediate effect. You can read about the changes on the OISC website. To help those affected, Free Movement is running a special offer of a 50% discount for the first year of Free Movement...
Interesting but unsuccessful judicial review of the refusal to grant British citizenship to a former Serbian police officer on good character grounds. The good character refusal was based on his activities as described at paragraph 5 of the judgment: The Claimant was born on the 8th of August 1981 in...
In a decision of 27 May 2016, the Inner House of the Court of Session held that excluding the spouses of refugees from the so-called ‘domestic violence concession’ (DVC) in Section DVILR of the Immigration Rules discriminates against such spouses in violation of Article 14 of the European Convention of...
In the first successful challenge to prosecutions under s.35 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc.) Act 2004, the Administrative Court in R (on the application of JM (Zimbabwe)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWHC 1773 (Admin) held that the Home Office may not lawfully...
Fees for judicial review applications hare risen yet again from today, Monday 25 July 2016. A new fees order was quietly laid last Friday: The Civil Proceedings, First-tier Tribunal, Upper Tribunal and Employment Tribunals Fees (Amendment) Order 2016. The fees going up are for the permission stage and they rise by 10%. Other fees remain as...
Imagine being told that everything you thought you knew as truth was an absolute lie. Imagine starting a journey with your peer group and then unexpectedly being ripped away from the same path. Imagine feeling as if no one understands your pain, your frustration, your anger. Imagine feeling like as...
The latest from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt: The report found that the Home Office had maintained the quality of its initial response despite the significant increase in ‘lorry drops’. The report also found that: there was a risk that minors placed in the care...
Available to ILPA members only, interesting report of the tribunal initially refusing to expedite a refugee family reunion appeal but agreeing to do so after a pre action letter was sent. Made a huge difference to the listing time. Source: Note on expediting cases in the First-tier Tribunal by Ben Gaston…...
Brexit question and answer session Last Friday evening Steve Peers, Professor of European Law at the a university of Essex, Samia Badani of New Europeans and Matthew Evans of the AIRE Centre participated in a live question and answer session organised by Migrant Rights Network on the impact of Brexit...
UPDATE: A Home Office source says that the update is a mistake, incredibly. Form AN for applying to naturalise as a British citizen has just been updated to state that a permanent residence certificate or card is NOT mandatory for EEA nationals and their family members. It now says: Please Note:...
If you attempt to murder someone with a gun, and after release from prison for attempted murder (a sentence of over four years), are caught again with a loaded gun and imprisoned, do not be surprised that only the most exceptional circumstances will save you from deportation. This was all...
The official headnote: (i) The effect of the amendment of the regime in paragraph 41/SD of Appendix A to the Immigration Rules via HC628, dated 06 September 2013, is that any application for entry clearance or leave made before 01 October 2013 is to be decided in accordance with the...
The Immigration Act 2016 was signed by Her Majesty the Queen on 12 May 2016. Some sections of the Act came into effect immediately but most sections were dependent on being brought into force by commencement orders at the discretion of the Minister. We have seen one commencement order so...
Guidance added on ‘Arrest and restraint’, ‘Enforcement interviews’, ‘Identifying people at risk’, ‘Illegal working operations’ and updated guidance on ‘Search and seizure’. The changes reflect new powers under the Immigration Act 2016. I can’t help thinking the Home Office might have other demands on its time now apart from this...
On 1 July 2016 the Government launched a new National Transfer Scheme for refugee children. It enables one local authority to request transfer of an asylum seeking child to another local authority. The rationale is said to be: to encourage all local authorities to volunteer to support unaccompanied asylum-seeking children...
Conveniently, David Davis MP, our new Minister for Brexit, made a detailed speech and wrote a detailed article on the subject of free movement and negotiations with the EU. From these we can see quite quickly that he does not like free movement. Of people, anyway. Towards the UK, anyway. He...
Article 8 is to be assessed as at the date of decision in entry clearance cases, the Court of Appeal has found: Accordingly, I would reject the date of decision argument. The decision under appeal was, as regards article 8 as much as the policy issue, the ECO’s decision of 12...
Another case here that serves as a warning against attempting to arrive on a visitor visa to marry an EU national while not telling the Immigration Officer that this is in fact your reason for entering the UK. Despite “some 500 pages” of evidence substantiating the genuineness of the relationship...
The Home Office has published two important new policies on asylum seeking children. The first is a rewritten version of the main Asylum Policy Instruction on Processing children’s asylum claims. The second is an entirely new 40 page policy instruction on Tracing family members of unaccompanied asylum seeking children.
...Two cases regarding evidence of torture, decided on different grounds. The uniting feature is some guidance regarding Rule 35 reports of torture by doctors. Where a Rule 35 report of torture is nothing but a restatement of the Appellant’s account, that will not constitute independent evidence – this is in...
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...
Paragraph 1: The situation in the present case raises again the question of whether it is appropriate to stay an application for judicial review when the defendant public authority has agreed to reconsider the decision in point, from scratch, with a fresh and open mind. The answer is that it is not appropriate to...
Version 2.0 of the Home Office country information and guidance on Albanian blood feud asylum claims. It isn’t immediately clear to me what has changed. If you spot anything important do leave a comment.. Source: Albania: country information and guidance – Publications – GOV.UK
...Details of free fast track service from the Home Office for obtaining your personal records. Only applies to certain computerised records but it is free rather than £10 and only takes 20 days rather than 40 days. Basically it is a faster version of the subject access request method, which...
A recent Freedom of Information request reveals the number of times the Home Secretary has deprived British citizens of their citizenship over the last ten years as well as the breakdown of reasons. The raw numbers were as follows: Year Total 2006 > 5 2007 0 2008 0 2009 > 5 2010 > 5 2011 […]
...I am currently commissioning some development work on the Free Movement website and it would be extremely useful if you could spare two minutes to answer the reader survey, which includes an opportunity to make suggestions about new features or changes you would like to see. I am very grateful...
Last week the Court of Justice of the European Union gave judgment in the case of NA C-115/15 on the vexed issue of retained rights of residence for victims of domestic violence. It is hard to care given the result of the Brexit referendum but it is a very important case...
Some significant updates to the guidance on exclusion from the Refugee Convention (both Articles 1F and 33(2)) according to the change log: updated to incorporate guidance on applying Article 33(2) of the Refugee Convention additional guidance on extremism and extremist behaviours to align with wider cross government extremism strategy incorporated...
Another Dublin / 3rd country removal case. Now that Italy has made general assurances to their EU partners that families will be accommodated together in appropriate conditions that do not breach Article 3, following the judgment in Tarakhel v Switzerland, specific assurance will not need to be made in any individual case. Ms...
Upper Tribunal Judge Francis Trevor Woodman Pinkerton retires with effect from 5 July 2016. Notes to editors Upper Tribunal Judge Pinkerton (70) was admitted as a Solicitor in 1970. He was appointed a part-time Immigration Adjudicator in 1995, a full-time Immigration Adjudicator in 1999 and a Deputy District Judge (Civil)...
Interesting case where the appellant did not run a Refugee Convention or Article 3 ECHR case against his removal, instead relying on Article 9 ECHR, the right to freedom of religion. He argued that his religious work for and with the Afghanistan Islamic Cultural Centre in the UK, of which he...
Some worrying news from The Guardian: UK citizenship has been given to the children of eastern Europeans living in Britain without the proper paperwork, the Guardian has learned. The affected families come from countries including Poland and the Czech Republic that joined the EU in 2004 and so far around...
Upper Tribunal Judge Kate Esi Eshun retires with effect from 1 July 2016. Notes to editors Upper Tribunal Judge Eshun (65) was called to the Bar (I) in 1983. She was appointed a part-time Immigration Adjudicator in 1992 and full-time Immigration Adjudicator in 1994 (now known as Judge of the...
First of all, as I have written previously, it seems highly likely that those EU nationals and their families currently resident in the UK will be allowed to remain. We do not know on what basis but it nevertheless seems highly likely. There are very many concerned readers of this...
More from the tribunal on how a “protection claim” implicitly means the paragraph 353 fresh claim must be met where it applies. The tribunal must decide its jurisdiction, apparently, but not in these circumstances, where someone else must decide it. I still don’t buy it, but so far the higher...
The case of Ruhumuliza (Article 1F and “undesirable”) [2016] UKUT 284 (IAC) concerns an Anglican bishop judged by the Secretary of State on the balance of probabilities to have been involved in crimes against humanity, specifically genocide, in Rwanda in 1994. He was therefore excluded from the protection of the Refugee Convention...
1. The No 3 Commencement Order of the 2014 Act, SI 2014/2771, extends the new appeals provisions to identified persons, but the amendment of it in SI 2014/2928 further extends those provisions to identified decisions. 2. In consequence, a person against whom a deportation decision was made in the period 10 November 2014 – 5 […]
...When a foreign offender has been convicted of an offence for which he has been sentenced to imprisonment of at least 4 years and has successfully appealed on human rights grounds, this does not prevent the Secretary of State from relying on the conviction for the purposes of paragraph 398(a)...
