Hamzeh & Ors, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE UNDERHILL
- SIR STANLEY BURNTON
Areas of Law
- Immigration Law
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This judgment addressed appeals by several Iranian and an Iraqi national challenging the Secretary of State's refusal to grant discretionary leave to remain in the UK. They argued for leave to remain based on prolonged residence and irremovability due to diplomatic issues. Lower courts had dismissed their cases. The appeals court found these claims unarguable but stayed proceedings pending a related case's outcome, emphasizing adherence to current laws and policies. Concurrence by Sir Stanley Burnton highlighted that irremovability doesn't lead to automatic residency.
Judgment
Lord Justice Underhill :
We have before us applications for permission to appeal in three cases which I ordered to be heard together because they raise overlapping points and issues of case management which are not entirely straightforward. Mr Hugh Southey QC, leading Mr Paul Turner, appeared for the Applicants in two of the cases and Ms Nicola Braganza of counsel appeared for the Applicant in the third. Ms Julie Anderson of counsel appeared for the Secretary of State in all three cases.
HAMZEH AND OTHERS
The Applicants in this case are five Iranian nationals who came to this country illegally at various dates between 2003 and 2006 and applied for asylum. All of their claims were refused, most of them promptly, and appeal rights in each case were long ago exhausted. They did not, however, leave voluntarily and they have not been removed. They say that they have no travel documents; and it is common ground that if that is true (though it is not accepted that it is) it has not, at least since 2011, been possible to enforce their removal, because the breaking-off of diplomatic relations with Iran has meant that fresh documents could not be obtained, and they were thus for the time being (though this may soon cease to be the case) “irremovable”. In each case the Secretary of State has made it clear that she is not prepared to exercise her discretion outside the Rules not to seek to proceed with removal or, still less, to grant discretionary leave to remain.
In 2012 the Applicants brought proceedings for judicial review in which, putting it broadly at this stage, they claimed that the Secretary of State was obliged to grant them leave to remain, though in due course this was modified to a less ambitious claim that her actual or implicit decision not to grant leave to remain should be quashed and that she be required to re-make that decision on a different basis. As eventually crystallised (a process which seems only to have occurred at the hearing), the legal grounds for that contention fell under two broad heads:
that the Applicants’ cases fell to be dealt with under the so-called “legacy programme” announced by the Secretary of State’s predecessor, Dr Reid, in July 2006, under which it was intended that all cases then outstanding would be “concluded” within five years; and that the commitment to achieve such conclusion gave rise to a legal entitlement on their part to be granted leave to remain if they were not removed at the end of that time;