OTS Successful Appeal Against Entry Clearance Refusal
Our client, Mr BH, is an Egyptian citizen. He brought a claim under s.82(1) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 for entry clearance in order to join his father, who was also an Egyptian refugee. Our client is a 21 year old student at an Egyptian university, whose father was a loyal supporter of Egypt’s previous President, Mohamed Morsi. His father came to the UK after a string of events which occurred whereby our client’s family were subjected to abuse, violence, and persecution due to the political association of our client’s father. Soon after our client’s father came to the UK as an Asylum seeker, and our client’s mother and younger sister soon joined him in the following months. Our client’s application unrepresented by OTS Solicitors at the time, and was denied his application in 2015 on the grounds that he did not satisfy the requirement under para.352D (ii) of the Immigration Rules which requires that person with refugee status who seeks leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom in order to join or remain with their parents to be under the age of 18. He then approached OTS Solicitors to make an appeal against this outcome.
Grounds of a successful appeal
When the appeal was brought to a First Tier Tribunal, the judge decided to also consider s.117B of the Immigration Rules and the case of Ghising (family life - adults - Gurkha policy) [2012] UKUT 160 and Gurung & Ors [2013] EWCA CIV 8. The judge rejected the application of para.352D on the following grounds: it was decided that although our client was a young adult, whose English language capability was not known, was a student at an Egyptian university, and there was no evidence of financial independence, the judge took the view that our client was emotionally and financially dependent on his parents, especially due to the fact that his father is victim of persecution and cannot return to his country of origin. The Judge also pointed out that the Immigration Rules do not make any provisions for young adults that are refugees, which he considered to be a repudiatory breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights 1950.
This case was a success due to the application carried out by OTS lawyers