Global Vision College Ltd, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LADY JUSTICE ARDEN
- LADY JUSTICE SHARP
Areas of Law
- Administrative Law
- Immigration Law
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Global Vision College Ltd's appeal centered around the Secretary of State for the Home Department's refusal to grant it HTS status due to exceeding the mandatory refusal rate. Key issues included whether the Secretary's fixed approach to the College's refusal rate and consideration of discrepancies in CAS assessment were lawful. The court upheld the lower court's decision to dismiss the appeal, supporting the Secretary of State's application of the 20% refusal rate criterion.
Judgment
Mr Justice King:
This claim concerns the Tier 4 - Points Based System (‘the system’)introduced by the defendant as the primary immigration route available to students who want to study full time in the United Kingdom. In particular it concerns the application by the defendant of her ‘less than 20% refusal rate’ criterion as a mandatory requirement to be met by any applicant education provider seeking ‘Highly Trusted’ Sponsor status.
The claimant is a privately owned further education college based in Manchester offering and providing courses to overseas students. The claimant was originally granted a Sponsor Licence with a B rating in August 2009. Thereafter in 2010 and 2011 there is a history, more fully set out both in the Detailed Statement of Facts and Grounds and the detailed Grounds of Defence, of numerous visits and inspections of the claimant by the defendant, of its licence being suspended and then re-instated at ‘B’ level, until finally on the 10th May 2011 the claimant was re-rated to an ‘A-rated’ sponsor status.
By these proceedings for judicial review the claimant seeks to challenge (i) the decision of the defendant by letter of the 7 th December 2012 to refuse the claimant’s application (dated 2 nd February 2012) for ‘Highly Trusted Status’ (HTS) and to reduce its allocation of CAS (Confirmation of Acceptance For Studies) to zero (ii) the consequential decision of the defendant of 14 th January 2013 to revoke the Sponsor Licence of the claimant with immediate effect. Permission was granted to challenge these decisions on limited grounds by HHJ Davies sitting as a High Court Judge by order of the 30 th April 2013.
The defendant had originally refused the application for HTS status by letter dated the 2 nd November 2012 and which letter also put the claimant on notice of revocation of its licence. That had been a short letter making clear that the sole basis for the refusal was the inability of the claimant to meet the mandatory requirement for HTS status that it’s ‘refusal rate must be less than 20 per cent’. This was a reference to the mandatory criteria set out in the material Policy Guidance (as to which see below) concerning the number of refusals of visa/entrance clearance applications made by students sponsored by the HTS applicant during the 12 months immediately prior to the date of its application. In its material part that letter reads as follows:
‘… 418 leave applications were made during the 12 month period prior to