If the cuts to the scope of legal aid brought by LASPO 2012 have been significant, the cuts proposed by the Ministry of Justice in the recent consultation “Transforming legal aid: delivering a more credible and efficient system” would be severe. I ...

  At Renaissance Chambers we have been involved with a number of recent Afghani and Pakistani (Ahmadi) charter flight cases and injunctions. I have noticed a couple of things that are troubling me. Firstly some of the factual immigration summarie ...

Many thanks to Eric Fripp of Lamb Building for the following note: On 8th May 2013 in the First Tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) at York House, a panel consisting of First Tier Tribunal Judges Woodcraft and Samimi dealt with two cases (r ...

Many thanks to David Saldanha of Howe and Co for this interesting note for legal aid lawyers: Practitioners will be aware that the LAA has been refusing funding for Cart type judicial reviews of the Upper Tribunal on the basis that they were placed ou ...

Last month saw the advent of a very useful decision from the High Court concerning the lack of provision in the Immigration Rules to allow migrants in the Points-Based System to switch whilst in-country into a PBS dependent category: Zhang, R (on the ...

It has been over a year since the High Court heard a challenge to the introduction of pre-entry English language tests for spouses and partners (and fiancés and proposed civil partners). It was argued in Chapti & Ors, R (on the application of) v ...

All appellant advocates appearing before the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal will be familiar with the growing trend for UK Border Agency Presenting Officers to withdraw decisions either very shortly before or even at the app ...

The Court of Appeal in the UK has very recently granted stays preventing the removal of asylum-seekers to Cyprus under Dublin II. The proceedings have been stayed pending the appeal against the judgment in EM (Eritrea) & Ors v SSHD [2012] EWCA Civ ...

A big thank you goes to Jane Heybroek of Bell Yard Chambers for persisting with her Freedom of Information request in relation to further documents concerning the Evidential Flexibility policy.  You can access the disclosure here.  The policy (but n ...

CM (EM country guidance; disclosure) Zimbabwe CG [2013] UKUT 59 (IAC) is important not only as Country Guidance on Zimbabwe but also on the law of evidence in the immigration tribunal. The broad effect of the Country Guidance findings are summarised ...

The latest report by John Vine, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, was published this week. It concerns applications to enter, remain and settle in the UK on the basis of marriage and civil partnerships and the summary of rec ...

Litigation is an expensive business, and immigration is a litigious business. As the recent brouhaha around judicial review revealed, the vast majority of judicial review cases in the High Court and on appeal up to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Cour ...

Just a reminder that time does not run over the Christmas period for lodging appeals in the First-tier Tribunal against its decisions. See the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (Procedure) Rules 2005 (as heavily amended) rule 2 definition of ‘busi ...

The consultation on changes to the procedure for judicial review has opened and it closes on 24 January 2013. Regular readers will recall that these proposals were said by David Cameron to be part of the Government’s efforts to combat the recess ...

Following on from the case of Ahmadi ( s. 47 decision: validity; Sapkota) [2012] UKUT 00147 (IAC)  the Upper Tribunal has (for now) resolved the perplexing issue of what to do when the Secretary of State combines a refusal to vary leave with a Sectio ...

The reported Upper Tribunal case of Kalidas (agreed facts – best practice) [2012] UKUT 00327 (IAC) underscores some important points of practice and procedure in the First Tier Tribunal (FTT). The case concerned an appeal before the FTT where it app ...

The President of the Queens Bench Division, Sir John Thomas, has issued a dire warning to solicitors applying for last minute judicial reviews and injunctions in immigration cases. The comments come in the case of R (on the application of Hamid) v Sec ...

As of 1 October 2012 a new procedure has been introduced for judicial review of decisions by the Upper Tribunal to refuse permission to appeal to itself. This follows on from the Supreme Court’s judgment in Cart and MR (Pakistan) [2011] UKSC 28 ...

Following on from his learned but — at least on the question of what a judge should actually do— slightly Delphic determination in AG and others (Policies; executive discretions; Tribunal’s powers) Kosovo [2007] UKAIT 00082, the Dep ...

A new “subjective” element has been discovered and can be found in the Immigration Appeals Family Visitor Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/1532). Watch out for this worrying little element as it has the potential to restrict the appeal rights of unmarrie ...

The Government is amending the Crime and Courts Bill to allow transfer of any or all immigration, asylum and nationality judicial review cases from the High Court to the Upper Tribunal. This seems to have pretty much universal support from Government, ...

This is the second post in a short series on the Zambrano judgment. The first part was Making a Zambrano application. Next time: Whither Zambrano? by Iain Palmer. Following on from the last post on Zambrano, the position of the UK Border Agency is tha ...

Kezia Tobin and Sarah Pinder recently broached this topic at a seminar given by Renaissance Chambers on 13 June 2012 digesting the procedural issues and most recent case-law involved and this post has been put together by them both to highlight some o ...

As has been widely reported in the mainstream media, the Government proposes to scrap family visitor appeal rights. Again. The change is intended to come into full effect in 2014 but as early as July 2012 the definition of ‘family’ will be ...

The Vice President of the Upper Tribunal has recently provided guidance applicable to cases where a party is alleging misconduct by a Judge. In the recently reported case of Azia (proof of misconduct by judge) [2012] UKUT 00096 (IAC) the official head ...

Court of Session upholds an application for judicial review of Upper Tribunal refusal of permission to appeal. The Outer House of the Court of Session (equivalent to the Administrative Court) has upheld a judicial review of an Upper Tribunal refusal o ...

Far too late to be of use to anyone, the Upper Tribunal has held that the controversial commencement of section 85A did not affect appeals that had already been lodged. The case is Shahzad (s. 85A: commencement) Pakistan [2012] UKUT 81 (IAC). It was ...

UPDATED AND REVISED Judgment was handed down this morning by the Court of Appeal in a test case on the nature of the second appeals test in immigration and asylum cases. The case name is JD (Congo) & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Departmen ...

In the second Court of Appeal judgment from last week in which Zane Malik was Counsel for the Appellant, that of Lamichhane v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 260, the same bench has given another judgment that many migrants ...

Lord Justice Ward is at it again: This is another of those frustrating appeals which characterise – and, some may even think, disfigure – certain aspects of the work in the immigration field. Here we have one of those whirligig cases where an asyl ...

The Upper Tribunal haven’t hung around in turning their attention to the recent case of Sapkota v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 1320, which was only reported here on the blog three weeks ago. They have also reviewed ...

The Court of Appeal last week handed down a very interesting judgment on the need for ‘proper argument’ in Country Guidance cases, the obligation on the tribunal itself to seek to secure that proper argument and how far the tribunal deter ...

As previously highlighted on this blog, fees are to be introduced for immigration appeals. The date has now been set for this to begin: for notices of decision dated 19 December 2011 or later. Strangely, as far as I can see, you won’t find anyth ...

In a dense judgment that more than once has caused me to question my will to live the Court of Appeal has held that it is unlawful for the Secretary of State to separate a decision to refuse to extend leave from a decision to remove. The case is Sapko ...

An interesting case on the use of electronic means (telephone, video link, Skype, Morse, that sort of thing) has been determined in North Shields. As the tribunal comes close to saying, it is serendipitous that it should be here where this issue would ...

The recent Court of Appeal decision in SH (Afghanistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 1284 repays reading for the way it reiterates the centrality of procedural fairness, especially in asylum cases. At the heart of the ...

The Upper Tribunal has reported a decision on the effect of the new section 85A of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002: Alam (s 85A – commencement – Article 8) Bangladesh [2011] UKUT 00424 (IAC). The official headnote reads as follows ...

After what felt like something of a hiatus early in the year, the tribunal has been churning out new reported cases in recent months as if there was no tomorrow. As far as I know no-one has suggested scrapping the Immigration and Asylum Chamber YET, a ...

Mark Symes has posted an article over at the HJT Immigration Blog on a new case from the Court of Appeal on the ‘second appeal criteria’. The case is PR (Sri Lanka) & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 988 ...

Last week, while I was away, the Supreme Court held that the Upper Tribunal can be judicially reviewed, and in much wider circumstances than envisaged previously by the High Court and the Court of Appeal. For England and Wales the case is Cart and MR ...