The Bar Council, Law Society and CILEX have published joint guidance for lawyers and clients and litigants in person on legal proceedings where one of the parties is a litigant in person. Solicitors should ensure they do not attempt to claim that which cannot properly be claimed. Which includes costs.
...Professor Hathaway’s original Law of Refugee Status has near mythical status in the lexicon of asylum lawyers. Published as it was in 1991, it was one of the first texts in the field, emanating from a time when English refugee law comprised largely basic propositions about the standard of proof,...
From the main Garden Court Chambers website regarding the case of Granovski & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 1478 (Admin): The High Court today handed down judgment on a judicial review challenging the Secretary of State’s rigid approach to calculating ‘continuous residence’ for settlement purposes....
CHAYN have produced a guide for non-lawyers on How to build your own domestic violence case without a lawyer. The guide goes step by step through the types of evidence and how to construct the case. It is also useful for lawyers trying to demonstrate the domestic violence suffered by their...
In an interesting short Upper Tribunal judicial review determination, Upper Tribunal Judge Coker finds on the facts of the particular case that a judge in earlier, separate proceedings had erred in failing to ensure that the reasons for refusal of asylum were properly put to an unrepresented litigant in person....
The Upper Tribunal gives country guidance on returns to DRC in the new case of BM and Others (returnees – criminal and non-criminal) DRC CG [2015] UKUT 293 (IAC): 1. A national of the Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”) who has acquired the status of foreign national offender in the...
New Home Office policy on comprehensive sickness insurance for family members of EEA students following on from amendments to the regulations in April 2015. It includes advance warning, basically: Whilst changes to the Regulations were made on 6th April, for operational reasons, the requirement for family members of students to hold...
In the case of Adjei (visit visas – Article 8) [2015] UKUT 261 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal dismisses an appeal against refusal of a family visit visa. This is despite the First-tier Tribunal finding that the application in question in truth met the requirements of the Immigration Rules and that the visit...
Tribunal Judges Charles Adolphus Vaudin d’Imecourt and Gordon Denson are retiring from the First-tier Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber. The renowned Judge Vaudin d’Imecourt was, notably, Chief Justice for Vanuatu from 1991 to 1998 until reportedly being deposed in a coup.
...The Law Society Gazette reports that Benny Thomas of Consilium Solicitors, an immigration lawyer who lied to court, has been struck off following a Hamid hearing and referral to the SRA. The original judgment is unavailable on BAILII but was reported at the time on Free Movement. Referral to the...
With the Children Act 1988, the language of “access” and “custody” was abandoned in family law, and with good reason. The language was suggestive of incarceration, it encouraged confrontation between parents and it was based on the idea of children as inanimate parcels or packages. In immigration law, though, that...
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....
Discretion in relation to costs is a wide one and awarding costs on an indemnity basis against an unsuccessful party is a departure from the norm. The substantive matter in the case of R (on the application of Kaienga) v Secretary of State for the Home Department IJR [2015] UKUT 272...
Upper Tribunal determination on “print and send” Tier 4 student applications: R (on the application of Wasif) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (rule 34 – “print and send”) IRJ [2015] UKUT 270 (IAC). “Print and send” applications were withdrawn in August 2014 so the case is of limited interest.
...The Upper Tribunal has found that returns of asylum seekers to Malta under the Dublin Regulation are lawful. The case is R (on the application of Hagos) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dublin returns – Malta) IJR [2015] UKUT 271 (IAC) 1) While the Maltese system for...
The Administrative Court last week (22.5.15) handed down judgment in the case of R (on the application of AB) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 1490 (Admin), quashing a decision not to recognize AB as a victim of human trafficking for the purposes of the Council...
It is very widely believed that the Human Rights Act stops the UK from deporting foreign criminals whence they came. To a limited extent, there is some truth in this. Some appeals against deportation decisions do succeed on human rights grounds. Not many, though, and none succeed because of the...
The Home Office has introduced a new policy on reconsideration of old human rights claims that were refused before 6 April 2015 with no right of appeal: Requests for reconsiderations of human rights or protection based claims refused without right of appeal before 6 April 2015. The policy is important in...
On 14 May 2015 Free Movement published an article containing a write up of the case of R (on the application of SN) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (striking out – principles) IJR [2015] UKUT 227 (IAC). The article included a hyperlink to a firm of solicitors...
The issue of when the Upper Tribunal might make a mandatory order requiring the Home Office to act in a specific way was considered in the case of R (on the application of Sultana) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (mandatory order – basic principles) IJR [2015] UKUT 226...
Having just finished drafting grounds for judicial review in a case involving a refusal of a Tier 4 study application on the grounds that the applicant was not a “genuine student” I was interested to see the new case of R (Mushtaq) v Entry Clearance Officer of Islamabad, Pakistan (ECO –...
The legendary Tribunal Judge Rosalind Clayton retires with effect from 13 May 2015: Tribunal Judge Clayton (70) was called to the Bar (M) in 1988. She was appointed a part-time Immigration Adjudicator in 1996 and a full-time Immigration Adjudicator in 2000 (now known as Judge of the First Tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber)).
...In the case of R (on the application of SN) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (striking out – principles) IJR [2015] UKUT 227(IAC) the President of the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber not only strikes out the applicant’s judicial review claim but also goes on to make...
Welcome to the April 2015 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. In this episode I cover some procedural points, several cases and some updates on commencement of the Immigration Act 2014. The material is all drawn from the April blog posts on Free Movement. If you would like to...
The Conservative Party manifesto includes replacement of the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights. We already have a Bill of Rights, so the proposed Conservative version will need to be called something different. Perhaps Bill of Rights 2: The Dark Night Rises. The Bill of Rights of 1689...
Standing at the door to No 10, David Cameron stated that he would form a majority government and implement the Conservative Party manifesto “in full”. The moderating influence of the Liberal Democrats has been extinguished. The nationalist isolationism of the Scots and the SNP renders them irrelevant in UK politics...
David Bolt, the new Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, started work on 1 May 2015. It is now quite some time since John Vine stepped down, and since any report was published. The last sentence of the announcement rather jumps out: Prior to 2001, for 25 years Mr Bolt...
I’m voting Labour today, and I will be spending the day out campaigning for my local candidate, Sarah Sackman. No party is perfect and the last Labour Government was deeply flawed in many ways, particularly in its approach to asylum issues. I resigned my long standing membership of the party...
Rights of appeal under the Immigration Act 2014 are only available in refugee cases and if ‘the Secretary of State has decided to refuse a human rights claim made by [the person]’ (amended section 82 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002). This will clearly require a human rights claim...
Filmmaker Don McVey has put together an excellent documentary on the spouse minimum income rule and the devastating effect it is having on affected families and children. It is heartbreaking. Don does a great job of drawing out how arbitrary the minimum income threshold is, how biased it is against...
