All Articles: Cases

Regulation 33 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 (SI 2016/1052) does not wrongfully exclude the ordinary principles applicable in interim relief applications. It does not exclude them at all. So held Mr Justice Murray in R (Yuri Mendes) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC...

16th August 2019
BY Alison Harvey

O v R [2019] EWCA Crim 1389 is the latest of a series of appeals brought by victims of trafficking against historic convictions. In this case the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) decided to quash a 2008 conviction because the prosecution had not even considered whether bringing O to court...

14th August 2019
BY Alex Schymyck

A student who ran away to join ISIS in Syria has lost a legal challenge to the UK government’s decision to take away his British citizenship. The judgment, handed down yesterday and the first case of its kind in the High Court, is R (Islam) v Secretary of State for...

8th August 2019
BY CJ McKinney

The ground of appeal in Hameed v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1324 was: It was wrong to find the appellant had made a false representation under paragraph 322(1A) of the Immigration Rules when he had not acted dishonestly. Mr Hameed had applied for a...

6th August 2019
BY CJ McKinney

Always a worry (but never a surprise) when Court of Appeal judges start off a judgment by saying that the case “has a tortuous procedural history”, is “highly technical” and involves “Byzantine… provisions” of immigration law. Firdaws v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1310 is...

31st July 2019
BY Bilaal Shabbir

In Secretary of State for the Home Department v MS (Somalia) [2019] EWCA Civ 1345, the Court of Appeal has held that the Home Office can cease refugee status where there has been a change of circumstances in the refugee’s country of origin such that it is possible for them...

30th July 2019
BY Alex Schymyck

The Supreme Court handed down its second judgment in the long-running case of Franco Vomero today. The latest instalment is Secretary of State for the Home Department v Franco Vomero [2019] UKSC 35. The facts Mr Vomero is Italian. He moved to the UK and married a British citizen in...

24th July 2019
BY John Vassiliou

If a foreign criminal wins their deportation appeal, can the Home Office try and deport them again, even where there has been no further offending? In MA (Pakistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1252, the Court of Appeal considered this question and held that the...

24th July 2019
BY Nick Nason

The First-tier and Upper Tribunals seem to have gone rather badly wrong in the case of MAB (Iraq) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1253, involving an Iraqi doctor who was formerly employed to care for prisoners by Iraqi military intelligence. The Court of...

22nd July 2019
BY Colin Yeo

In immigration law, deadlines are important. They also frequently cause confusion. Sound familiar? That may be because this is how I began a post last month following the Upper Tribunal case of Bhavsar. The Upper Tribunal has now published another case demonstrating the importance of, and confusion caused by, deadlines...

19th July 2019
BY Iain Halliday

In the case of Secretary of State for the Home Department v PG (Jamaica) [2019] EWCA Civ 1213 the Court of Appeal considered the meaning of “unduly harsh” in deportation cases, overturning the decisions of both of the tribunals that had previously heard the appeal. In this post we look...

17th July 2019
BY Nick Nason

The Court of Appeal has taken a restrictive approach to the admission of new evidence before the Upper Tribunal that was not available before the First-tier Tribunal. The case is Kabir v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1162. In Kabir, the First-tier Tribunal had refused...

16th July 2019
BY Alex Schymyck

The Home Office cannot detain an EU citizen pending deportation without first considering whether detention is “proportionate and necessary” under EU law, the Court of Appeal has said in R (Lauzikas) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1168. Any decision to detain cannot be based...

15th July 2019
BY Larry Lock

In MS (appealable decisions; PTA requirements; anonymity : Belgium) [2019] UKUT 216 (IAC), President Lane and Upper Tribunal Judges Gill and Finch provide important guidance on jurisdiction in EEA deportation and Article 8 appeals and the correct procedure for raising “cross appeals” in the Upper Tribunal. I represented the claimant...

12th July 2019
BY Ben Amunwa

In 2016 the Home Office embarked on an attempt to homogenise the application processes for immigration applications made under EU law and those made under UK law. The Upper Tribunal has confirmed in Rehman (EEA Regulations 2016 – specified evidence) [2019] UKUT 195 (IAC) that there are limits to how...

11th July 2019
BY Iain Halliday

The deportation case of a Nigerian man with sickle cell disease, resident in the UK for almost three decades, has been bouncing around the UK court system for over six years. It appears the case has finally been settled by the Court of Appeal – on its second visit –...

9th July 2019
BY Nick Nason

In the recent Court of Appeal case of UT (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1095, Lord Justice Coulson has dealt with some important issues relating to practice and procedure in the tribunal system. UT is a Sri Lankan who came to the...

8th July 2019
BY Christopher Cole

The High Court has ordered the Home Office to return an asylum seeker to the UK from Uganda because her 2013 asylum appeal hearing was unfair. PN v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 1616 (Admin) is the latest in a series of cases about the consequences...

2nd July 2019
BY Alex Schymyck

In immigration law, deadlines are important. They also frequently cause confusion. Bhavsar (late application for PTA: procedure) [2019] UKUT 196 (IAC) is an example of the complications that missing a deadline can cause. In Bhavsar the Upper Tribunal decided that, where an application for permission to appeal is submitted to...

28th June 2019
BY Iain Halliday

Migrants who have spent ten years in the UK with continuous and lawful leave can apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR). Can leave be “continuous” if it involved short gaps between lawful periods of leave where an applicant has overstayed? This was the question addressed by the Court of...

27th June 2019
BY Nick Nason

Detention in a young offender institution has much the same impact on an EU citizen’s enhanced protection against deportation as imprisonment in an adult jail, the Court of Appeal has held. The case is Secretary of State for the Home Department v Viscu [2019] EWCA Civ 1052. EU deportation law A...

26th June 2019
BY CJ McKinney

Where a company sponsors a worker from overseas to fill a vacancy in the UK they must only do so if that vacancy is “genuine”. The case of R (Suny) v SSHD [2019] EWCA Civ 1019 arose from a disagreement between a sponsored worker and the Home Office about the...

25th June 2019
BY Nick Nason

Banger (EEA: EFM – Right of Appeal) [2019] UKUT 194 (IAC) has finally reached the end of the road. This is the case that went up to the Court of Justice of the European Union on, essentially, two issues: Does the Surinder Singh route apply to durable parters? and Are...

24th June 2019
BY Colin Yeo

This week the Court of Appeal quashed the certification of an Albanian asylum claim as “clearly unfounded”. In SP (Albania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 951, the court found that the Home Office had not properly investigated the appellant’s account of being persecuted before...

21st June 2019
BY Larry Lock

The Supreme Court has today dismissed the Home Office appeal in the case of Gubeladze [2019] UKSC 31. The judgment affects hundreds of thousands of EU citizens from the so-called Accession Eight (or “A8”) countries that joined the EU in 2004 and means that the United Kingdom unlawfully imposed a registration system,...

19th June 2019
BY Colin Yeo

The Court of Appeal has upheld the appeal against deportation of a man sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, in the process providing a good example of the kind of human rights arguments that will sway judges in this notoriously difficult area of law. The court reiterated the high threshold that...

17th June 2019
BY Iain Halliday

AL (Albania) [2019] EWCA Civ 950 is a new Court of Appeal judgment which says some important things about the approach a tribunal judge should take to factual findings made by another tribunal judge in a related appeal. In this case, AL’s elder brother had claimed asylum on much the...

13th June 2019
BY David Neale

Immigration judges must assess whether an asylum seeker had a reasonable opportunity to claim asylum in a safe third country before holding that a failure to do so should damage their credibility, the Court of Appeal has ruled. KA (Afghanistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA...

12th June 2019
BY Alex Schymyck

In March 2018, the Upper Tribunal promulgated the country guidance decision AS (Safety of Kabul) Afghanistan CG [2018] UKUT 118. The tribunal dismissed AS’s appeal and provided guidance on the suitability of Kabul as a site for “internal relocation”. It broadly held that relocation to Kabul was generally safe and...

31st May 2019
BY Ali Bandegani

It’s not often these days that we see a positive result from the Court of Appeal, but just before the bank holiday two out of three Lord Justices declared that Home Office policy on assessing the age of asylum seekers is unlawful. The case is BF (Eritrea) v Secretary of...

28th May 2019
BY CJ McKinney

The Court of Appeal has handed down guidance on “limbo” cases in RA (Iraq) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 850. These are cases where a migrant cannot be removed from the UK because, for example, conditions in their country of origin prevent it...

24th May 2019
BY Bilaal Shabbir

Hot on the heels of the decision in Sajjad comes another mind-bending Home Office decision on Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visa extensions, this time relating to job creation.  In R (Khajuria) v SSHD [2019] EWHC 1226, an Indian entrepreneur had created the jobs necessary to extend her visa but her application...

22nd May 2019
BY Nick Nason

The Court of Justice of the European Union has decided in joined cases C‑391/16, C‑77/17 and C‑78/17 M, X and X that recognised refugees who commit serious crimes can be lawfully deprived of their refugee status under EU law and that there is no incompatibility on this issue between EU...

17th May 2019
BY Colin Yeo

The Court of Appeal has given judgment in two linked cases involving victims of trafficking prosecuted in the UK for offences linked to their trafficking: N v R [2019] EWCA Crim 752. In one of the cases, involving a young Vietnamese man prosecuted for cannabis cultivation, the conviction was overturned. In...

14th May 2019
BY Colin Yeo

The Court of Appeal has upheld the deportation of a refugee known only as AM who entered the UK in 1987 aged 11. Having grown up and been educated in the UK, AM held several jobs at different times, had been married and had three estranged British children. He also...

9th May 2019
BY Colin Yeo

This article is about the High Court and Court of Appeal decisions in the leading (and so far only) case on segregation in immigration detention. They are R (Muasa) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 2267 (Admin) and R (TM (Kenya)) v Secretary of State for...

8th May 2019
BY Alex Schymyck

The European Court of Human Rights has developed Article 5 ECHR beyond domestic law and potentially created a dramatic increase in the amount of damages payable for unlawful detention caused by a breach of detention policy. VM v United Kingdom (No. 2) (application no. 62824/16) is only a decision of...

1st May 2019
BY Alex Schymyck

One of the requirements for Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) migrants extending their visas in the UK is to show they have invested £200,000 that they previously showed was available for investment in their initial applications. The important case of R (Sajjad) v SSHD [2019] EWCA Civ 720 is about the ways...

24th April 2019
BY Nick Nason

When someone pursuing an appeal in the immigration tribunal decides that they no longer want the appeal to go ahead, who gets to decide when the appeal comes to an end? The person themselves, the tribunal, or the Home Office? In July 2017, Mr Justice McCloskey, President of the Upper...

17th April 2019
BY Iain Halliday

The Court of Appeal has handed down a blockbuster judgment on the highly controversial use of paragraph 322(5) of the Immigration Rules to refuse settlement to migrants over alleged tax discrepancies. It says that the Home Office’s stance in these cases is “legally flawed” and needs a major overhaul to...

16th April 2019
BY Nath Gbikpi
Login
Or become a member of Free Movement today