All Articles: Judges
Home Office conceding 30% of appeals, Pres says
The Home Office is now conceding three out of every ten immigration appeals before the hearing, a senior immigration judge has said. Michael Clements, President of the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber), puts the cheerful stat down t ...
23rd September 2021Immigration judge savaged by Upper Tribunal for apparent copy-and-paste judgment
The vice-president of the Upper Tribunal has laid into a more junior immigration judge for a judgment so bad it amounted to a “failure of the judicial process”. Vice-president Ockelton said that the judgment in question, which was littered ...
2nd November 2020Pioneering immigration judge Hugo Storey retires
Hugo Storey had his last day as a judge on 30 September, having reached the statutory retirement age of 75. The established place the Upper Tribunal now has in the UK judicial system and its high reputation abroad owes much to Hugo’s pioneering ro ...
2nd October 2020Home Office tries to lean on judges deciding immigration bail cases
The Home Office tried to put pressure on judges to stop releasing migrants from immigration detention, it has emerged. An official letter from the department to a top immigration judge said that the Home Office was “somewhat surprised” tha ...
6th May 2020Judge rebuked for adjourning case during cross-examination
The Upper Tribunal has reprimanded an immigration judge for granting an adjournment during the cross-examination of an appellant. In WA (Role and duties of judge) Egypt [2020] UKUT 127 (IAC), the President and Vice President of the Upper Tribunal prov ...
22nd April 2020New guidance for judges on granting immigration bail
Judge Clements, President of the First-tier Tribunal (IAC), yesterday released comprehensive new guidance on immigration bail for judges. The updated guidance naturally takes into account the significant changes brought about by the Immigration Act 20 ...
3rd May 2018Book review: The Making of an Immigration Judge by James Hanratty RD
James Hanratty RD, known as a compassionate and sometimes rather unconventional judge, will be a familiar name and indeed face to any London-based barrister specialising in immigration work. I for one was relieved rather than panicked when I would see ...
11th October 2017Immigration judge “wholly failing to meet standards”, Upper Tribunal finds
Three judges of the Upper Tribunal have examined 13 separate decisions of the same First-tier Tribunal judge and found them “wholly failing to meet the standards that are demanded by the office of a judge and expected by the parties”. The ...
27th September 2017Upper Tribunal provides guidance in cases of judicial bias
In Sivapatham (Appearance of Bias: Sri Lanka) [2017] UKUT 293 (IAC) (7 July 2017) frustrated novelist and president of the Upper Tribunal McCloskey J considers the law surrounding judicial bias in the tribunal. As with previous exponents of the art (s ...
18th August 2017New President announced
The new president of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the new Upper Tribunal has been announced: Mr Justice Nicholas Blake QC. The appointment is effective as of 15 February 2010, when the unlamented Asylum and Immigration Tribunal is merged into ...
20th November 2009International Association of Refugee Law Judges
I noticed in the policy feed in the left panel on this blog that there was an item about the International Association of Refugee Law Judges (IARLJ). I clicked through and found some interesting papers have just been posted on their website from a co ...
14th March 2009Immigration ‘judges’ to lose their titles?
The government is currently consulting on yet another fundamental overhaul of the immigration appeal system. This has become a bothersomely regular occurance, taking place in 1993, 1996, 1999, 2002 and 2004, with some further tweaks in 2006 and 2007 & ...
26th September 2008