Government loses sham marriages appeal

Draconian measures to stop illegal immigrants entering into “sham marriages” were today blocked at the court of appeal.Three appeal judges ruled that the government had breached human rights laws in its attempts to prevent couples tying the knot to avoid immigration controls.

They insisted couples had the right to marry and the right not to be discriminated against.

It upholds a similar high court ruling a year ago.

The finding of discrimination, a central issue in the case, arose from the fact the regulations did not apply to Church of England marriages and operated to the unfair disadvantage of not only non-Anglican Christians but also members of other faiths, including Muslims and Hindus.

The government suspended operation of the rules and pledged to put forward amendments to end the discrimination, but challenged the “right to marry” ruling.

Today, the court of appeal held that the restrictions – which applied across the board with no inquiry into whether a marriage was a sham or not – were a “disproportionate interference” with people’s right to marry.

Lord Justice Buxton said the home secretary could only interfere with a couple’s right to marry in cases that involved, or very likely involved, sham marriages entered into with the object of improving the immigration status of one of the parties.

“To be proportionate, a scheme to achieve that end must either properly investigate individual cases or at least show that it has come close to isolating cases that very likely fall into the target category.

“It must also show that the marriages targeted do indeed make substantial inroads into the enforcement of immigration control.”

Last year’s high court judgment, won by test case couples including an illegal entrant to the UK from Algeria, led to the launch of claims for damages from many people who say they have been denied the right to marry.

Hundreds of other cases are potentially affected.

The judgment by Mr Justice Silber, upheld today, was a serious blow to government moves set in motion by former home secretary David Blunkett to end sham marriages entered into by illegal entrants.

Mr Silber said preventing sham marriages was a legitimate aim, but the new rules, introduced in February 2005 under the 2004 Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act, were not “rationally connected to that aim”.

They required immigrants wanting to marry to obtain from the Home Office a certificate of approval costing £135 per person.

If a certificate was refused, a couple faced having to go abroad to marry and then any partner lacking proper immigration status having to apply again to enter the UK.

The Home Office says the new regime led to a dramatic fall in the number of immigrant “suspect marriage” reports from marriage registrars and that it is determined to protect the UK’s immigration system and marriage laws from abuse.

But human rights lawyers argued the rules unfairly and unlawfully brought “pain, suffering, humiliation and misery” to many genuine couples.

Lord Justice Buxton, sitting with Lords Justices Waller and Lloyd, said the right to marry and found a family under Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights was “recognised as an important and fundamental right, not to be lightly interfered with”.

It was difficult to see how interference with that right on grounds of immigration control could ever be justified where the parties genuinely intended to live together as man and wife.

After the judgment, human rights solicitor Amit Sachdev, who had represented the couples involved, said: “Sadly, this Act once again shows the government’s ongoing and abject failure to respect the human rights of immigrants or take on board the decisions of the courts when its policies are found to be illegal.

“Our position throughout was that this [the Act] was a knee-jerk reaction based on speculation and conjecture rather than evidence.”

The shadow immigration minister, Damian Green, said: “Yet again John Reid has failed to deliver. His tough talk has simply failed to be matched by effective action.

“It is outrageous that after 10 years of a Labour government we are still awaiting an effective policy to crack down on sham marriages.”

Britain’s Asylum Rules Come Under Scrutiny in Human Rights Case

Britain’s asylum procedures will come under scrutiny at the European Court of Human Rights as an Iraqi national challenges a decision by immigration authorities to hold him in detention for “administrative efficiency.”

Shayan Baram Saadi arrived at Heathrow Airport in London on Dec. 30, 2000, followed the necessary procedures and was granted temporary admission. After being free for several days, he was then detained for a week. Saadi, 31 this year, complained to the European court that his detention and the lack of explanation at the time breached his rights.

“This case is about simple human dignity and freedom,” Alex Gask, a legal officer for civil rights group Liberty, which intervened in the case, said before the hearing. “People should never be imprisoned for nothing more than administrative convenience, whether they are British citizens or non-nationals fleeing persecution overseas.”

Human rights groups say that immigration control has increasingly become a way to combat terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. Today’s case, which is being heard by the Strasbourg, France-based court’s highest chamber, will examine which grounds are acceptable for detaining a person and what amount of time is reasonable for such a detention.

Saadi, a medical doctor, was held between Jan. 2 and Jan. 9, 2001, at the Oakington Reception Centre, which was set up to handle U.K. asylum applications that could be dealt with quickly and where there was no risk of the applicant fleeing. The site, which has high perimeter fences, locked gates and 24-hour security guards, has a canteen, medical center and space for outdoor recreation, according to the court.

A lower chamber reached a unanimous verdict in July last year that Saadi hadn’t been informed promptly of the reasons for his arrest, which was a breach of his rights. However, the chamber ruled by four votes to three that his right to liberty and security hadn’t been violated.

Under the European Convention on Human Rights, a person can be held to prevent “an unauthorized entry into the country.” The chamber said such a detention doesn’t have to be “reasonably considered necessary.”

“All that is required is that the detention should be a genuine part of the process to determine whether the individual should be granted immigration clearance and/or asylum, and that it should not otherwise be arbitrary, for example on account of its length,” the court ruled.

Question of Time

Liberty has said it fears the ruling is seen as “a green light” for the government to detain asylum-seekers “for significant periods of time.”

Judge Nicolas Bratza, one of the seven judges to rule in July 2006, said at the time that while he agreed with the majority verdict he recognized “the concern felt that a person should be deprived of his liberty for reasons essentially of administrative efficiency and the risks of arbitrariness which such detention may entail.” He said that detaining a person “significantly in excess of” seven days wouldn’t be acceptable.

Three of the judges — Josep Casadevall, Kristaq Traja and Jan Sikuta — wrote a joint dissenting opinion to the ruling. They emphasized that Saadi had followed all the instructions given to him by the authorities and didn’t misuse the system.

“The possibility of detaining an asylum seeker at any time during the asylum procedure on the ground that it was to `prevent his effecting an unauthorized entry into the country’ would represent great legal uncertainty for the person concerned,” they said.

“The true reason” for Saadi’s detention “was purely based on administrative or bureaucratic grounds,” they said.

The case is Saadi v. the United Kingdom, 13229/03.

Rogue employers to face illegal working crackdown

The Home Office drive against illegal working moved forward today as talks began with industry on the implementation of tough new legislation designed to crackdown on bogus employees.

The new rules will see rogue employers face a prison sentence and/or an unlimited fine if found knowingly employing illegal workers. Civil penalties will also be levied on companies which have been negligent in carrying out checks on workers. The level at which these fines will be set and how they will be imposed is now the subject of a consultation, published today.

The new measures, which will take effect early next year, are part of the Home Office’s Illegal Working Action Plan, launched today, co-ordinated through the new Border and Immigration Agency (BIA). It follows measures designed to toughen border controls, double enforcement resources and joint work with police and benefits agencies to tackle illegal immigration and its consequences.

“Life in the UK”? It would test a native

By Peter Graff

LONDON (Reuters) – The “Life in the UK” test should have been a breeze for someone like me. I’m a native English speaker (well, American speaker) and I’ve written about just that subject — life in Britain — for five years.

For Reuters, a news agency founded 156 years ago in London, no less.

I’ve accompanied British troops into battle in Iraq and Afghanistan, flown with Prime Minister Tony Blair to Washington, interviewed the defence secretary, the Archbishop of Canterbury and a Rastafarian named Spirit who was trying to save his East London grocery shop from property developers.

Yet somehow, in all those conversations, the answers to most of the questions on the test, now required for anyone seeking permanent residence in Britain, never came up.

How old do you have to be to buy a lottery ticket? When are local government elections held? Are there more Indians or Pakistanis in Britain?

The correct answer to that last one is “Indians”. I got it wrong. So did most of the colleagues I tried it on, including my boss’s boss’s boss, Political and General News Editor Paul Holmes. He’s British.

Still, Reuters can be spared some embarrassment: I passed.

50,000 a month arrive to UK from Bulgaria & Romania

The first count taken since the beginning of the year shows there were around 50,000 arrivals each month from the two new members.

The figures, released by the Office for National Statistics, quantify visitors from around the world who said their stay in Britain would be temporary. But on past evidence it would be no surprise if the East European ‘visitors’ decided to stay longer. There is no time restriction on them, though they must apply for permits if they want to work. In the first three months of 2006 the number of visitors from Eastern Europe – the eight countries including Poland that came into the EU in April 2004 – was 540,000. But in the first three months of this year, after Romania and Bulgaria joined, the number rose to 680,000, an increase of 25%. In March 2007 some 230,000 visitors arrived from the member countries of Eastern Europe, 57,000 more than in the same month last year.

Migrants march to stay in UK

A mass rally has called for a one-off “earned amnesty” for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants living in the UK.

The Strangers Into Citizens campaign was joined by faith leaders, immigrants from across the world, community activists and church groups in a gathering in Trafalgar Square, central London, yesterday.

The campaign is calling for a two-year work permit, without access to benefits, for “irregular” migrants – refused asylum seekers or visa overstayers – who have been in the country for four years or more.

Addressing the rally, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, said immigrants living and working in the country deserved to be treated with “fairness, with justice and with dignity”.

He said: “Our Government and the governments all over the world must treat migrant workers with justice and with dignity.

“That is why I am so glad to be associated with fellow Christians and people of other faiths and with politicians who are determined to see that before long these people who we say are strangers in fact become citizens.”

The rally, attended by thousands, came after a Mass at Westminster Cathedral for migrant workers.

A colourful procession through Whitehall before the rally featured drummers, whistle-blowers, and Latin American bands, playing in spite of driving rain at times.

Some carried banners reading: “Abolish all racist immigration controls.” Other banners read: “No one is illegal. Regularisation for all.”

Under the proposals put by the campaign, those qualifying for a work permit would be given indefinite leave to remain at the end of the two-year period subject to criteria such as an English test, no criminal record and employer and sponsor references.

Beware bogus ‘immigration police’

Bogus immigration police officers have been reported calling at homes in Southampton. Police said they had received reports of people, not in uniform, calling at the homes of foreign residents in the city.

The bogus callers claim to be from a “Hampshire Immigration Police” and ask for bank accounts and identity details.

A spokesman for Hampshire police said there was no such thing as a “Hampshire Immigration Police Service”.

Police have advised residents to install door chains.