Category Archives: Appeals

Valid Passport with the Home Office? Zimbabweans with no claims still very much removable from the UK

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Cases such as Babbage, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWHC 148 and  JM (Zimbabwe), R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWHC 1773 are often understood  by  some to mean that any Zimbabwean national detained under UK immigration powers is  irremovable.  This is not correct. The  Home Office have incrementally been detaining Zimbabwean failed asylum seekers  upon reporting and some  are  indeed being  removed forcibly to Zimbabwe.

 

The question that becomes relevant  for  Zimbabwe nationals  who have no claims or appeals pending is  this: have the Home Office retained the person’s valid and current passport at some point?  If so, without a legal basis of  being in the UK, the chances of  resisting removal to Zimbabwe are very much  significantly reduced.

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Coming Full Circle: Scrapping Of The Recent Immigration Tribunal Appeal Fee Increase

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u-turn

Only a month and two weeks after the coming into force of the massive increase to the immigration Tribunal fees, the Government announced suddenly on 25 November 2016 that it was abandoning the rise of up to 500% in immigration tribunal fees.

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Immigration Judge’s Unfair Conduct: Why has the Upper Tribunal withheld the detail of that conduct in Elayi?

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justice-is-blind

Appellants who appear before Immigration Judges are human beings: their humanness does not cease the minute they  enter the Tribunal  venue building so as to be picked up again upon leaving the  venue.

Appellants need to be treated with dignity, fairness  and respect: at all times during proceedings  and  by ALL persons present.

An Immigration Judge can be stated to have a considerable degree of   power over an Appellant’s  life. This is  because  some  of the appeals they consider involve life and limb, in particular claims from Appellants seeking protection as well as claims  which involve issues of  family life separation  matters  where young children are involved.  With that knowledge and having at their grip the power to allow or dismiss an appeal,  it  surely  does not  take much  for an Immigration Judge to ensure  that during proceedings  a measure of  fairness is accorded to an Appellant at all times.

Although the fresh decision in Elayi (fair hearing – appearance) [2016] UKUT 508 (IAC) is very much welcome in seeking to  reiterate the obvious, “Justice must not only be done but must manifestly be seen to be done”, there are issues as set  out below regarding the  deficiencies  within that judgment.

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Tip of the Day: Appeal Fees And Appeal Reinstatement in the Immigration Tribunal

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cash

Some Appellants might find  themselves having lodged an appeal  in the  Immigration Tribunal but without having  provided the relevant  appeal fee  for various reasons – the most obvious simply being  lack of resources.

Upon receipt of such an appeal, the Tribunal will send a , “Requirement to pay a Fee” Notice and  will require receipt  of such payment  within a set time period.  Failure to  provide the required fee(s)  will  result in the Tribunal taking no further action on the appeal.

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Resisting Deportation: Being a father to British or settled children simply not enough reiterates Court of Appeal

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deportedThe Court of Appeal  is clearly at pains  to ensure that both tiers of the Tribunal get the law right  when  considering appeals in relation to foreign national criminals.  As acknowledged in the recent case of The Secretary of State for the Home Department v AJ (Zimbabwe) [2016] EWCA Civ 1012, “There has been a plethora of cases which have come to this court concerning the application of article 8 to foreign criminals and in particular seeking to clarify the scope of the residual “exceptional circumstances” concept. The principles of law are well established and not in dispute in these appeals and therefore I will do no more than summarise the effect of the leading authorities”.

 

Apart from reiterating the  relevant principles, the Court of Appeal also  emphasized that the general framework of Strasbourg law as established in cases such as Maslov cannot simply be slavishly applied  as this  fails to view the Article 8 assessment through the lens of the Immigration Rules and will cause Tribunals to go astray, as  occurred in AJ (Zimbabwe).

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Can an EEA national be compulsorily transferred from the UK to serve his sentence in his own country?

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The Upper Tribunal  has sought to answer this question in the case of Restivo (EEA – prisoner transfer) Italy [2016] UKUT 449 (IAC).

 

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