Successful Family Visitor Visa Appeal
Quite some while ago, in 2013, the Government removed the full right of appeal to the Immigration Tribunal for family visitor visa applications. The grounds of appeal for unsuccessful family visitor applicants are now limited to arguments based on race discrimination and human rights.
Everyone knows that race discrimination arguments can hardly ever succeed in the context of immigration law and some people feared that family visitor visa appeal arguments based on human rights might not be very strong either. Human rights applications are very often based on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to private and family life, but these are qualified rights, not absolute rights.
Individuals holding ILR for a certain period, typically five years, may become eligible to apply for British citizenship, further solidifying their ties to the UK. Citizenship of Britain offers individuals many rights, such as unrestricted employment opportunities and participation in both political and social life of their home nation.
Balancing Family Rights and Immigration Control: A Glimpse into Article 8 Appeals for UK Family Visitor Visas
Thus a decision-making Tribunal or Court has to carefully balance the rights of the applicant to family life against the right of the UK Government to control immigration and, depending on the facts, the decision can go either one way or the other. Because a visit is, by definition, for a short temporary period, it was widely feared that refusal of a family visitor visa application would not be of sufficient gravity to engage Article 8 very strongly. At last one of these cases, titled “Mostafa”, has reached the Upper Immigration Tribunal (the higher tier of the immigration tribunal system), and the result has been encouraging. The Upper Tribunal indicated that an Article 8 human rights family visitor visa appeal argument could potentially succeed if the facts were strong.
Mr Mostafa, an Egyptian national married to a British wife who split her time between Egypt and Britain, applied for a visitor visa so he could temporarily join his wife while she travelled between them both countries for work purposes. Unfortunately his application was denied on account of not meeting certain Immigration Rules requirements – specifically that his intentions to depart at the conclusion of his visit could not be demonstrated convincingly enough by proof alone.
Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), also referred to as settlement or permanent residency, is an immigration status in the UK that offers individuals the privilege of residing and working in the country without any limitations on their duration of stay. ILR bestows various advantages upon individuals, including access to public funds, healthcare services, and educational opportunities. With ILR, individuals can establish their long-term presence in the UK, enjoying the freedom to live and work indefinitely.
