Business and Investing

The UKBA's Points Based System suffers second attack

The post-election speculation has finally ended with the government’s announced “four strand policy” starting to take shape.

The Court of Appeal's judgment in Pankina & others v Secretary of State for the Home Department may have holed the UKBA's points based system below the waterline

In one of its recently issued determinations the Upper Tribunal's Immigration and Asylum Chamber seems to have begun freely to express its frustration at what it sees as the idiosyncrasies of the points-based system.

Currently applications from Turkish nationals who establish themselves in business having entered the UK in a different capacity appear to be unlikely to succeed following the Court of Appeal's judgment in Filiz Sonmez last year. But, as Gherson predicted, the issue on which Ms Sonmez lost - the application of the "abuse principle" in European Community law - has now been referred by the Court of Appeal to the European Court of Justice.

The senior courts are beginning to consider the points based system and its accompanying regime of sponsorship management.

The Court of Appeal has rejected an appeal from an Irish company and its non-EU employees against a Judge's decision that they could not rely on European free movement rights to provide services in the UK, and that their attempts to do so were abusive.

The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal has found that it is open to people applying under the Tier 1 (Post Study Work) category of the Points Based System to rely on money they have been lent to satisfy the maintenance requirements of the Immigration Rules.

The Home Office has continued its programme for the reform of the structure of immigration legislation in the United Kingdom with the publication of its new Draft Immigration Bill, which will consolidate all existing immigration laws if it should come into force after next year's General Election

The United Kingdom Border Agency has announced that it has opened a visa route for Turkish nationals applying to establish themselves in business under the European Community Association Agreement.