“Marriages of convenience are, for immigration purposes, synonymous with sham marriages”, so states Home office policy guidance (Marriage Investigations).
Monthly Archives: July 2017
Lambasting of legal representatives and Home Office: Court of Appeal clarifies Secretary of State not bound by any family court orders in deportation/removal cases
“It is very depressing. The law has been clear for the best part of 50 years ……… It should go without saying, but I fear there is need to spell out what ought to be obvious ……So far as I am aware, none of these principles have ever been challenged or doubted. Is it too much to demand that people pay more attention to them?”, so queried the President of the Family Division in apparent exasperation in The Secretary of State for the Home Department v GD (Ghana) (Rev 1) [2017] EWCA Civ 1126 (25 July 2017). This was said during the course of seeking to reiterate the effect of family court orders in deportation and removal cases.
Wide-reaching judicial innovation: Stateless UK born child able to acquire Indian nationality found entitled to British citizenship
By an innovative and skilful interweaving of statutory provisions, caselaw and guidance, Mr C M G Ockelton sitting as Deputy High Court Judge, reached a startling conclusion. He concluded that a child born in the UK in 2010, who could have been registered as an Indian national at any time since birth, was entitled to registration as a British citizen, having regard to the requirements of paragraph 3 of Schedule 2 to the British Nationality Act 1981.
Revocation of deportation orders: FTT Judge applies the wrong law and incorrectly approaches the issue of delay
In The Secretary of State for the Home Department v SU [2017] EWCA Civ 1069 (20 July 2017), the Court of Appeal clarified from the outset that they had been informed that the appeal before them was the first occasion on which they were concerned with the correct approach to the revocation of a deportation order where it had been implemented but the deportee had, in breach of the deportation order, returned to the UK and established a private and family life following the period of unlawful presence.
Temporary admittance applications by deported EEA nationals to have appeals heard in the UK: Kasicky doubted
Strangely, although the case of R (on the application of Gabor) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Reg 29AA: interpretation) [2017] UKUT 287, was promulgated on 25 October 2016, it appears to have only been published on 12 July 2017 by the Upper Tribunal. A delay of 8months- even more perplexing as the judgment itself is relatively short.
As to the effect of the decision, for practical purposes, it does not matter whether the temporary admission application considered in Gabor was under the now redundant 2006 EEA Regulations via Regulation 29AA or Regulation 41 of the new 2016 Regulations.
Humanitarian Protection: Court of Appeal revises and amends current country guidance AA(Iraq)
Although the Court of Appeal in AA (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 944 (11 July 2017) undertook a painstakingly long and arduous analysis of the relevant statutory provisions and caselaw on the arising jurisdictional point, for current purposes it is important to note that the current Iraq country guidance caselaw has been amended.
The Court of Appeal could not help but observe that the case presented the unusual situation where both the Appellant and the Secretary of State agreed that there was an error in the Country Guidance Case, AA (Article 15(c)) Iraq CG [2015] UKUT 544 (IAC).
The parties agreed before the Court of Appeal that the appeal should be allowed albeit on a narrow ground.