News
The UNHCR is calling on countries to open their borders to migrants fleeing from the violence in Libya. To read further, click here.
For UKBA announcement re temporary closure of the visa application centre in Tripoli and re advice for Libyans whose leave is due to expire shortly. To read further, click here.
For most recently revised UKBA guidance, click here.
Cases
R (MD (Gambia)) v SSHD [2011] EWCA Civ 121
Although evidence of human rights breaches in Gambia was insufficient to demonstrate the necessary degree of systematic breaches such as to render the SSHD’s listing of the country, under 2002 Act, s 94(4), unlawful, that same evidence could, and on the facts did, render the certifying of the particular Gambian asylum seeker’s claim as clearly unfounded, under s 94(2), unlawful. To read further, click here.
PO (Nigeria) v SSHD [2011] EWCA Civ 132
In the CG case of a Nigerian citizen who had been the victim of human trafficking ([2009] UKAIT 00046), the AIT had erred by not considering evidence as to the availability of adequate shelter if she was returned and had incorrectly imposed a burden on her to prove she had been trafficked by a gang and not just by a single trafficker. See per Carnwath LJ at paras 47-58 for criticism of the CG aspect of the AIT’s determination and see para 58 and appendix for interim guidance. To read further, click here.
R (Mirza & Ors) v SSHD [2011] EWCA Civ 159
With respect to five claimants who had been refused variations of their limited leave to enter / remain, the CA held that the SSHD’s failure to make removal decisions, against which they could appeal on grounds relating to immigration rules, para 395C, was unjustifiable in their particular cases – albeit that a (short) ‘pause’ between the decisions to refuse variation and to remove would have been sensible. However (para 43) there was "no reason… to depart from the proposition which was accepted in TE (Eritrea) that there may be cases in which segregation of the two decisions is nevertheless justified." To read further, click here.
R (Daley-Murdock) v SSHD [2011] EWCA Civ 161
Conversely the same bench (Sedley, Rimer & Sullivan LJJ) held in the case of an overstayer who had been refused leave to remain, that there was no obligation on the SSHD to make a simultaneous decision to remove against which she could appeal on human rights (Art 8) grounds and that even in such cases where children were involved there was no general obligation but rather each case would be fact sensitive. To read further, click here.
R (SM) v SSHD [2011] EWHC 338 (Admin)
Beatson J, applying ZH (Tanzania), held that the SSHD had erred in assessing the effect that a child’s British citizenship had upon proposals to deport his non-citizen father by failing to address the child’s best interests and that, as the failure had impacted on the question of whether there was a realistic prospect of deporting the father within a reasonable time, his detention became unlawful from the time the SSHD acted on her flawed assessment. To read further, click here.
GS (Article 3 – health – exceptionality) India [2011] UKUT 35 (IAC)
UTIAC found against the claimant who required kidney dialysis, holding that in D v UK the claimant came into the exceptional category because he was beyond the reach of medical treatment, and hence no medical care obligation was placed on the expelling state, whereas a seriously ill claimant who will, if he remains, require continuing medical treatment for the foreseeable future, is not an exceptional case. To read further, click here.
Training
3 March 2011
European Law Update
A HJT Seminar in London
For the details, click here.