Tentative Guidance from Court of Appeal as to meaning of “very significant obstacles to integration” in an inadequately prepared application

“ I wish to add that this Court sees too many cases in which applicants for leave or their advisers – particularly in cases depending on article 8 outside the Rules – devote their energies to setting out extracts from the case-law rather than to demonstrating a compelling case based on the details of the applicant’s particular circumstances. The latter exercise may require more work, but it is what the Secretary of State, and if necessary the Tribunal, will be more concerned with. Cases of this kind generally turn on their facts, and the applicable law does not require elaborate exposition”.   So said the Court of Appeal in Parveen v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 932 (25 April 2018)

This is clear criticism by the Court regarding the practice of advancement of inadequately or  poorly prepared Article 8 applications.

Such applications  clearly need to be particularised as to  circumstances, buttressed   by relevant supportive evidence. Generic  and vague cover letters will not suffice more so where it is  subsequently sought to  mount future challenges in the higher courts.

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Harsh lesson: Court of Appeal punishes the Home Office for not accepting defeat in a deportation appeal

The Court of Appeal came down hard on the Secretary of State last week. And rightly so.

 

It is high time that the Secretary of State learns the harsh way that it is not every allowed appeal against deportation that must be pursued  to the death in the higher courts.

 

Not only did the Court of Appeal in Secretary of State for the Home Department v Barry [2018] EWCA Civ 790 (17 April 2018) maintain the decision of the First Tier Tribunal allowing an appeal against deportation but awarded costs on an indemnity basis to the intended deportee. This was on account of the conduct of the Secretary of State which was found by the Court of Appeal to be “indeed unreasonable to a high degree”.

 

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Getting a raw deal: When lodgement of an EEA residence card appeal does not prevent removal

Imagine the following scenarios:

 

  • Persons seeking to assert a right of residence as extended family members of EEA nationals exercising treaty rights in the UK;

  • Those the Home Office assert are party to a marriage of convenience with an EEA national with the result that, so far as the Home Office is concerned, the applicant is not a family member of an EEA national

This is what can happen when such persons are served with refusal decisions or following lodgement of appeal against such a refusal:

 

  • Detention with a view to removal and service of a “notice of removal window” (RED.0004 (fresh)). The notice of removal window is usually accompanied by a One-Stop Notice under section 120 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 . Section 120(2) provides that the serving of the One-Stop Notice requires the recipient to provide a statement, setting out his or her reasons for wishing to remain in the United Kingdom, and any other grounds on which he or she should be permitted to remain, together with any grounds on which he or she should not be removed from or required to leave the United Kingdom.

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The 7year Rule and parental misconduct: Overstaying, failed asylum claim and use of false documents not fatal to claim decides the Upper Tribunal

Despite the formalisation and introduction of the 7year provisions into the Immigration Rules, in practice the Home Office seem to abhor the very Rule that Government has entrenched into the legal framework.  Where applications placing reliance upon the 7year Rule are refused, at appeal, Home Office Presenting Officers rarely take issue with establishment of fact of the child’s UK residence itself but fervently seek to sustain an attack focused upon the parent’s past conduct and behaviour, with the intended result that the public interest in removal becomes stronger.

 

The ancestry of Paragraph 276 ADE (1)(iv) is well set out between paragraphs 8 to 17 of PD and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] UKUT 108 (IAC).   In PD, the Upper Tribunal clarified at Para 12 of their judgement “…….in applications for leave to remain based on Article 8 private life, it has not been sufficient for a child applicant to have accumulated seven years continuous residence in the United Kingdom. Rather, the applicant has also had to demonstrate that he or she could not reasonably be expected to leave the United Kingdom”.

 

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Adult Dependant Relatives: Court of Appeal confirms the Rules are “rigorous and demanding”

How old, ill, disabled or bereft of emotional support does an elderly parent have to be in order to satisfy the requirements of the Adult Dependant Relatives Rules?

 

From recent judgments in the higher courts and in practice generally, it seems that evidence provided in support of applications under this Rule can never be good enough nor sufficient.

 

In dismissing the appeal, the Court of Appeal in Ribeli v Entry Clearance Officer, Pretoria [2018] EWCA Civ 611 (27 March 2018), has very recently confirmed what most already know- that the Adult Dependant Relatives Rules are “rigorous and demanding”.  The Appellant found no refuge by relying upon Article 8 family life arguments in the alternative.

 

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