News
The Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) has launched a consultation on revising its guidance on competence for immigration advisors. Read more.
Following the Home Secretary's admission that the government has been 'maladroit' in its handling of immigration, various commentators have been calling for an open debate on the subject. Read more.
According to the charity Mind, the mental health of refugees and asylum seekers is being made worse by UK detention centres and complex asylum and immigration processes. Read more.
The Home Office's RDS service have released new COI Reports on China, Eritrea, Sudan and Turkey (all October 2009) and Iraq (September 2009); a COI bulletin on Sri Lanka (Oct) and key documents on Kosovo (Oct). Read more.
Cases
In SA (Kuwait) v SSHD [2009] EWCA Civ 1157 the CA held that once the IJ had accepted the authenticity of identity documents demonstrating that the appellant is a bidun (stateless person) from Kuwait, he erred in law in dismissing the appeal on adverse credibility grounds. The guidance in Tanveer Ahmed [2002] UKIAT 439 has to be applied with careful regard to the particular issue before the AIT and where the only issue is the appellant's status, and the documents relied on, if genuine, are conclusive of status, it can only rarely be helpful or relevant to test out the appellant's veracity or dependability in other ways. Read more.
In R (Gumama) v ECO, Manila [2009] EWHC 2583 (Admin) Timothy Brennan QC held that on reconsidering an application for a student visa in circumstances where the educational institution (Cambridge College of Learning) that the applicant had identified in the original application no longer satisfied the immigration rules, the ECO was required to consider the application in relation to a second institution where the applicant had been accepted because the identity of the particular institution was not of itself a defining characteristic or requirement for leave to enter.
Events
On 21 November ILPA will host their annual conference in central London. see www.ilpa.org.uk
