Law Commission: Simplifying Immigration Rules Will Bring Benefits To Everyone Involved

In its recent report, the Law Commission has addressed the issue of the complexity of the Immigration Rules and their gradual evolution over the past forty years, expanding from the original 40+ pages initially to over 1,000 pages today. The overall theme of the report is that the Rules, guidance and the application procedure should be simplified as much as possible. The report advocates a better use of technology, such as developing a user-friendly online platform to deal with applications.

Over the course of 2019, the Law Commission consulted various bodies, ranging from those having to apply under the Rules themselves to lawyers, judges and higher education providers, in order to better understand the problems and issues, and use their input in making its recommendations.

The respondents to the consultation agreed that the Rules should be designed and drafted in a way that did not require a legal background to understand them. The Law Commission recommended that they should be suitable for non-expert use, be comprehensive and accurate, as well as being clear, accessible and consistent. It has also been recommended that their structure should be resilient enough to accommodate future amendments, and have the capacity to be presented in a digital format.

Read more: Gherson Immigration, https://is.gd/rqqrxp

More Than 300 Human Rights Activists Were Killed In 2019

More than 300 human rights defenders working to protect the environment, free speech, LGBTQ+ rights and indigenous lands in 31 countries were killed in 2019, a new report reveals. Two-thirds of the total killings took place in Latin America where impunity from prosecution is the norm. Colombia, where targeted violence against community leaders opposing environmentally destructive mega-projects has spiraled since the 2016 peace accords, was the bloodiest nation with 106 murders in 2019. The Philippines was the second deadliest country with 43 killings, followed by Honduras, Brazil and Mexico.

2019 was characterized by waves of social uprisings demanding political and economic changes across the globe from Iraq and Lebanon in the Middle East to Hong Kong and India in Asia and Chile in the Americas. The report by Front Line Defenders (FLD) details the physical assaults, defamation campaigns, digital security threats, judicial harassment, and gender-based attacks faced by human rights defenders across the world, who were on the frontline of protests against deep seated inequalities, corruption and authoritarianism.

In the cases for which the data is available, the report found: 85% of those killed last year had previously been threatened either individually or as part of the community or group in which they worked. 13% of those reported killed were women. 40% of those killed worked on land, indigenous peoples and environmental issues.

Read more: Nina Lakhani, Guardian, https://is.gd/KIZWHP

---

Unprecedented Rise In UK Visa Appointment Fees

Last week, a number of law firms drew attention to the fact that the Home Office had increased its biometric appointment fees, without any prior notice. When submitting most UK immigration applications, an applicant is required to attend a visa application centre in order for the Home Office to record their biometric information, which includes taking fingerprints and having a photograph taken.

Sopra Steria, an IT consultancy, is responsible for managing the visa application centres on behalf of the Home Office and the implementation of any increases in the appointment fees, which were already considered to be expensive given that they are levied in addition to the Home Office application fees themselves. The biometric appointment fees have been increased by just under 17% for a standard appointment (from £60 to £69.99) and by 8% for appointments outside of office hours or on Saturdays (from £125 to £135). In addition to the appointment fee, applicants are also required to pay a further Home Office fee of £19.20 in order to submit their biometric information with their application (this fee is usually included as part of the total Home Office application fee).

The Home Office website (at https://www.gov.uk/ukvcas) still lists the old appointment fee of £60, not the increased fee of £69.99, suggesting they were not given prior notice of the change either. Last week, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA) raised the issue of the increase in fees with both the Home Office and Sopra Steria in order to try and obtain clarification on the rises and to discuss the lack of communication in respect of advising applicants of the changes.

Posted by: Gherson Immigration, https://is.gd/ZhCY0g

Abbreviated Age Assessment Of Afghan National Carried Out By Council Was Unlawful

A council’s assessment of an Afghan national’s age, based on his physical appearance and demeanour, was unlawful because the abbreviated assessment undertaken failed to adequately acknowledge the potential margin for error and give him the corresponding benefit of the doubt, a High Court judge has found. The claimant in AB v Kent County Council [2020] EWHC 109 (Admin) had arrived in the UK, in the back of a lorry, at the Port of Dover on 26 July 2019 at 4.20am. He claimed asylum and said he was 15 years old. Later that day social workers from Kent County Council concluded that AB presented physically and in his demeanour as aged between 20-25 years. The council therefore treated him as an adult and declined to provide him with accommodation and other assistance pursuant to its duties under the Children Act 1989. In turn, in reliance on the council's assessment, the Home Office treated him as an adult and arrested him as liable for detention at 17.15pm the same day, before releasing him on bail.

AB, by his litigation friend, challenged the lawfulness of the council's assessment of his age as procedurally unfair and unlawful.

Mrs Justice Thornton said the issues raised by the claim were: (1) the lawfulness of an abbreviated assessment of age by a local authority, based on physical appearance and demeanour, which does not comply with the full panoply of procedural safeguards laid down in caselaw for such assessments and are often referred to as "Merton compliant" assessments, after the leading case of R (B) v London Borough of Merton [2003] 4 All ER 280; [2003] EWHC 1689 (Admin); (2) The applicability of the recent Court of Appeal decision in BF (Eritrea) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 872, to an abbreviated assessment by a local authority.

There were four grounds of challenge to the age assessment by Kent: (1) The age assessment was procedurally unfair and lacked a number of appropriate safeguards (e.g. failing to provide an appropriate adult; failure to account for cultural, racial and social differences). (2) The council should have conducted a Merton compliant assessment. (3) The assessment was unreasonable, irrational, unreliable and failed to give sufficient consideration to material evidence and facts, and failed to give reasons. (4) The defendant's assessment was wrong as a question of fact. The parties were agreed that the factual assessment of AB's age should be transferred to the Upper Tribunal. They could not agree, however, whether permission had been granted for this aspect of the claim.

Counsel for AB did not seriously dispute the principle of an abbreviated assessment but focussed on the circumstances in which it would be permissible, Mrs Justice Thornton said. The judge said: “[Whilst] it may be legitimate for a local authority to assess age based on an abbreviated assessment of physical appearance and demeanour, it is incumbent on the authority to ensure that any such decision takes into account the margin for error in the abbreviated nature of the assessment.”