‘An Italian man has been removed from the UK despite holding a Home Office certificate explicitly stating he has a right to travel in and out of the country while officials process his application to live and work in the country post-Brexit.’
The Guardian, 8th February 2024
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘Migrants facing unlimited detention in “prison-like” UK immigration sites are being handcuffed to beds and allowed to self-harm, a European anti-torture committee has found.’
The Independent, 8th February 2024
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘The UK government’s proposals to send asylum seekers arriving to the UK onto Rwanda continue to spark intense opposition.’
EIN Blog, 6th February 2024
Source: www.ein.org.uk
‘Baroness Hale revealed her “true colours” by voting against the Rwanda Bill, according to former leader of the Commons Jacob-Rees-Mogg, who yesterday called for the “politicised” Supreme Court to be emasculated.’
Law Society's Gazette, 7th February 2024
Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk
‘A teenager trapped in Gaza and separated from his parents has brought an urgent legal challenge against the UK Home Office and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) after the government refused entry clearance for him to join his family in the UK.’
The Guardian, 6th February 2024
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘A man who piloted a boat carrying more than 70 migrants who were rescued off the Kent coast has been jailed.’
BBC News, 5th February 2024
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘The Home Office has threatened a Portuguese plumber who has lived legally in the UK for more than 20 years with deportation after he struggled with his application to remain in the country.’
The Guardian, 4th February 2024
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘A member of the Windrush generation who was wrongly denied entry to the UK and sent to Jamaica has been granted a judicial review of his case.’
The Independent, 4th February 2024
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘Unmanaged illegal migration risks bringing the rule of law into disrepute, the lord chancellor said last night. In a speech to legislators and lawyers during a visit to the US, Alex Chalk MP said such migration “disregards borders and is putting undue pressure on the national systems of rules-based countries like ours and is a fundamental challenge to our democracies.”‘
Law Society's Gazette, 1st February 2024
Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk
‘The recently announced plan to increase the minimum income requirement (MIR) to £38,700 led to widespread criticism, with the government appearing to exclude all but the affluent from establishing family life in the UK. This has led to a partial policy shift, with it now announced that the threshold to sponsor a spouse will not rise to this amount until 2025, with an interim rise to £29,000 taking place in the Spring. Nonetheless, even this lower amount will be unaffordable to many families, raising questions about the compatibility of the rise with Convention rights. In R (MM) Lebanon v SSHD [2017] UKSC 10 the Supreme Court found that the initial MIR, set at £18,600, was lawful. In this post, I will highlight two key problems with the judgment, along with the failure of the MIR to restrict the social security entitlement of many affected families: the MIR’s primary justification.’
EIN Blog, 31st January 2024
Source: www.ein.org.uk
‘A people smuggler has been jailed for conspiring to bring 16 Albanian migrants to the UK with fake EU passports and fraudulent airline bookings.’
Home Office, 26th January 2024
Source: www.gov.uk
‘A pizzeria owner from Cumbria who hired two illegal workers has been banned from being a company director for six years.’
BBC News, 30th January 2024
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘The Home Office has announced significant measures to reduce legal migration to the UK, following the latest statistics showing record net migration figures for 2023. They will likely be implemented during Q2 2024, although the exact timeframe is yet to be finalised. They will significantly increase the costs to employers who wish to sponsor overseas workers and affect British citizens and settled persons in the UK looking to bring family here.’
Law Society's Gazette, 26th January 2024
Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk
‘The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill will receive its second reading in the House of Lords on 29 January 2024, having cleared the House of Commons unamended. There are a great many problems with the Rwanda Bill, any of which might weigh with the Lords, but this blog post focuses on just one: the likelihood that, if enacted, the Bill may well trigger a constitutional crisis between the courts and Parliament. It would be a crisis that is likely to endure beyond the life of the policy embodied in the Bill. I argue here that one of the roles of the House of Lords is to act as a constitutional safeguard, a steam-valve, and, in exercise of this function under the rare circumstances that attend this Bill, it would be legitimate for the Lords to not only make and insist upon far-reaching changes to the Bill, but even to refuse to pass it altogether. This post is not concerned with the realpolitik of whether peers would in fact vote the Bill down – though I come to the point in the conclusion. It rather seeks to refute the constitutional argument that it would be illegitimate to block or make potent amendments to it.’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 26th January 2024
Source: ukconstitutionallaw.org
‘When Ismael found himself sleeping rough at York station in the late October cold he struggled to understand how an opportunity to pick berries 7,000 miles from his home had so quickly ended there.’
The Guardian, 26th January 2024
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘The UK government is once again navigating legal and political hurdles over its plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. The latest debate is over the emergency bill that legally declares Rwanda a safe place to send refugees (despite the supreme court ruling the opposite).’
EIN Blog, 23rd January 2024
Source: www.ein.org.uk
‘Modern slavery is surging in social care since ministers relaxed immigration rules to fill thousands of vacancies, with a growing wave of exploitation leading to workers being ripped off or living in squalor.’
The Guardian, 21st January 2024
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘A leading lawyer who sits in the Lords has warned that Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda bill is “a step toward totalitarianism”.’
The Independent, 18th January 2024
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘Members of Parliament in the UK will on 16 and 17 January 2024 debate the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, which “gives effect to the judgement of Parliament that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country” for asylum-seekers. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in November 2023 that Rwanda was manifestly not safe as asylum seekers sent to the country would face a real risk of ill-treatment due to insufficient guarantees against refoulement. The Bill thus aims to use law to determine a factual situation for as long as the law is in force. This blog discusses the risks inherent in creating such a “legal fiction” and how the Bill could be revised to mitigate this risk, before assessing the chances of it becoming law in the currently turbulent political context.’
EIN Blog, 16th January 2024
Source: www.ein.org.uk
‘Last year’s Supreme Court decision in R (AAA) v Home Secretary – which found the British government’s Rwanda policy to be unlawful – has reignited broader debates about the position of a government which commands a majority in Parliament vis a vis the judiciary, the separation of powers, the extent to which legislating against judicial decisions is constitutionally proper or compatible with the rule of law, and the appropriateness of disapplying sections of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA 1998). This post does not restate or reengage with such topics; substantive attention has already been given by Tom Hickman KC, Professor Mark Elliott, Adam Tucker, Professor Sarah Singer, and Richard Ekins KC et al. Neither does it take a position on the feasibility or desirability of any specific government policy, the continued operation of HRA 1998, or membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Instead, this post will argue that the backlash to and disapproval of the British government’s response to R (AAA) – the introduction of the Safety of Rwanda Bill, which, amongst other measures, allows Parliament to diverge from the Supreme Court’s judgment – neatly evidences the intended effect of New Labour and Lord Derry Irvine’s HRA 1998 system and judicial reforms.’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 15th January 2024
Source: ukconstitutionallaw.org
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