Legal Action to Urge Home Office for Decision

Hi guys,

I was just wondering if one can bring home office to court for making a quicker decision on a visa application ?

Has anyone does this ? Or does anyone know how to do it ?

Obviously 10 months is a very very long time for processing a visa application particularly when your right to travel has been removed and I don't think this would be acceptable anywhere outside the home office (?)

So I'm wondering if there's any way to get the court to order the home office to conclude an pplication quicker ... otherwise they can take as long as they want ? Is there any limit by law ? 10 years ? 20 years ? What if they lose an applicants documents during processing and just keep quiet about it ?

Why not write a letter to your local MP explaining your case?

It does work sometimes.

I doubt if it's possible to take HO to court. Besides, if it were you would most likely lose the case not forgetting the legal costs you will incur.

babylondoner wrote:Why not write a letter to your local MP explaining your case?

It does work sometimes.

I doubt if it's possible to take HO to court. Besides, if it were you would most likely lose the case not forgetting the legal costs you will incur.

I completely agree.
Write to your MP.
My case was dragged on for over 6 plus months.
As soon as I wrote to my MP I got my visa in 14 days.
So writing to MP does work.

Agreed with Cappachio totally, sometimes we need a factor to wake the HO up and make them move in a required pace...knock the door of MP.

There is no legal basis to challenge Home Office in that way. Even though very small number of Tier 1E visas are being issued every year (far less than Tier 2), unfortunately the route has been extensively abused and as the MAC report shows, only a small portion of the applicants managed to extend their visas or comply with the conditions of their stay. So HO is taking its time to carefully process any Tier 1E applicant.
The other factor is that HO is under staffed and has suffered many cuts, so they are struggling with huge backlogs building up.

zimba88 wrote:There is no legal basis to challenge Home Office in that way. Even though very small number of Tier 1E visas are being issued every year (far less than Tier 2), unfortunately the route has been extensively abused and as the MAC report shows, only a small portion of the applicants managed to extend their visas or comply with the conditions of their stay. So HO is taking its time to carefully process any Tier 1E applicant.
The other factor is that HO is under staffed and has suffered many cuts, so they are struggling with huge backlogs building up.

Hello Zimba88 thank you for your message above. I am not denying anything you said but just taking part in the discussion and putting forward my views. I understand HO considers this route to have been abused but so is the evidence that HO abusing the powers given to them. In my opinion they can take as long as they want to come to a decision however, problem arises when their way of dealing with the application jeopardises the lives of the applicant and associated member of the family (UK and Abroad, Human rights Act Article 8 ).

I dont think its wrong to think to drag HO to the court if your businesss is genuine and if the water goes above its mark and you suffers loss based on the problems you face as a direct/indirect result of the application. One has to do a research to highlight to the watchdogs, media, panorama, facebook local authorities etc. Depends person to person how they deal with it and what siutation life throws to them. 10 months is a way long time!! If they are understaff they must recruit more that is no excuse for delay over 10 months. (especially for people who have come from other countries and those who might have plans or emergencies). They should be able to travel and come back and let HO take as long as they want..

HO can be reminded via an MP or a claim may be processed against any wrong doings of HO via the insurances businesses have. May be a corporate lawyer would be of any help.. dont know.. meanwhile we should not loose focus on our businesses..!! So keep your options open..think like a business.. on a global scale not just UK.. follow their requirements.. and hope for the best.. but raise your concerns where ever necessary.. If you have genuine reasons speak up.. dont let these things affect your mental and personal health..!!

It is unclear how HR to private/family life - which is a qualified right and not an absolute right - has even the remotest connection to any visa application.

Without all the melodrama of PAP and JR and barristers on speed dial, the appropriate approach would be via the prescribed channels.
After all who has time and money to waste on these other distractions and for servicing lawyers' lifestyles.

For cases which have not been addressed with a reasonable number of weeks (and many are), this is:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisat ... -procedure

noajthan wrote:It is unclear how HR to private/family life - which is a qualified right and not an absolute right - has even the remotest connection to any visa application.

That has an absolute connection with visa application (Tier 1 Ent. or any other visa route including EU family members visa). If a business is genuine this qualified right should be treated as an absolute right. If there is a flaw at HO end, they must accept and recompensate this which we dont see often.

noajthan wrote: Without all the melodrama of PAP and JR and barristers on speed dial, the appropriate approach would be via the prescribed channels.
After all who has time and money to waste on these other distractions and for servicing lawyers' lifestyles.

For cases which have not been addressed with a reasonable number of weeks (and many are), this is:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisat ... -procedure

This is helpful thank you

live4pride wrote:That has an absolute connection with visa application (Tier 1 Ent. or any other visa route including EU family members visa). If a business is genuine this qualified right should be treated as an absolute right. If there is a flaw at HO end, they must accept and recompensate this which we dont see often.

A knee-jerk cry of "Human Rights, Human Rights!" does noone any favours - least of all the genuine and deserving Human Rights cases.

Although slightly dated, you can see how UKVI is doing here:
http://icinspector.independent.gov.uk/2 ... inspector/

But as per the 2015 MAC report, the writing is on the wall for a whole swathe of the Tier 1 demographic:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... eur-routes

... evidence of migrants on Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visas that do not appear to engage in much business activity of any description. In between, we found many examples of migrants establishing low growth potential businesses which are not especially innovative.

... almost three quarters of Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) migrants fail to extend their visa, suggesting that a large proportion may not be establishing successful businesses

... a large proportion of Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) migrants are not operating in highly skilled or innovative industries. Furthermore, we were only able to link a relatively small proportion of Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) migrants to active businesses

Overall, we believe that there is a strong argument that the current Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visa route should be substantially reformed. A more selective route would maximise the economic benefit to the UK by reducing volumes whilst raising the average quality of the entrepreneurs admitted.

Its not clear from the above that UKVI will be motivated to invest much on behalf of applicants on this route in its current form.

The case for Human Rights cannot be made reasonably in my opinion. Which human right issue has been overlooked by HO ??
Also you must pay attention to the general climate regrading the immigration in the UK. Neither the general public nor the government are sympathetic to immigration. In fact most of the general public oppose it vociferously and want the numbers to be reduced significantly.

Thank you for your valuable input guys.

Contacting MP sounds like a good idea. But does anyone know how that actually works in terms of legal side of things ? So home office is obliged by law to respond to the MPs while it can just keep on telling us "keep on waiting" "keep on waiting" forever ?

Also I thought a legislation should have been made to put a cap on the processing times for applications. But it's really surprising that nobody has thought about this. In this way technically home office can take years if it wants to and no one can stop them.

Btw, has HO ever lost anyone's passport and documents during processing ? 10 months is a long time after all and anything can happen. Specially if you have thousands of applications coming in every day.

And I definitely do not share this opinion with some members that home office can do whatever it wants because some people have abused this route. That's the most basic element of common sense; One should not pay for anyone else's fault and that's it as far as my logic works. It's just a shame that our application fees are not spent on us at all in terms of employing more case workers to process applications quicker and developing a more sophisticated system for checking the progress of applications, etc.

kamalata wrote:Thank you for your valuable input guys.

...

And I definitely do not share this opinion with some members that home office can do whatever it wants because some people have abused this route. That's the most basic element of common sense; One should not pay for anyone else's fault and that's it as far as my logic works. It's just a shame that our application fees are not spent on us at all in terms of employing more case workers to process applications quicker and developing a more sophisticated system for checking the progress of applications, etc.

HO is not obliged by a law to respond to MPs. They may do so as a courtesy.
Some MPs that members contact do absolutely nothing.
The correlation between invoking an MP and any response or action from UKVI is unclear.

UKVI/HO has invested in workflow and case management tools; you can read about it and the associated outsourcing contracts (and the Removals workflow system) in reports readily available in the public domain.

I have not excused or justified any further lack of investment by UKVI but, whilst reform of the whole route is pending, it can be seen as both rational and understandable.
And everyone pays for the abuse of the few. That's the way of the world.

Home Office is under no obligation to accept proposals put forward by the migration advisory committee (MAC).

the same MAC was against stopping post study visa and yet Home Office closed the route and has refused to open it. i can mention several other proposals made by this same committee regarding other visa categories that have not been implemented.

The MAC proposal on Tier 1 entrepreneur was made in 2015 and there has been changes in the route since then. It is very difficult to get on this route and it remains one of the most demanding UK visa categories so let's cut this category some slack

there is no UK visa category that has not been subject to abuse (visiting visa, hsmp, student visa, psw, working holiday visa, spousal visa, etc), so if there are a few entrepreneurs abusing this route, it is nothing new. People will always try to bend rules - that is one fact of life. the fact still remains that the percentage of migrants on this route is very minimal compared to those on Tier 2.

that said, there are many genuine reasons why people do not extend their entrepreneur visas after their initial application. i have three friends that although are still running their successful businesses have switched category to spousal visa (why remain on this category when you are married to a British citizen). I know another friend that left the country on his own freewill at the expiration of his 3 years visa because his business wasn't successful and he just didn't see the point in investing more money. i am sure the Home Office is aware of some of these scenarios

noajthan wrote:
Its not clear from the above that UKVI will be motivated to invest much on behalf of applicants on this route in its current form.

This forum is infested with those low quality entrepreneurs you refer too. They make it hard for the serious entrepreneurs....

Home Office is under no obligation to accept proposals put forward by the migration advisory committee (MAC).
the same MAC was against stopping post study visa and yet Home Office closed the route and has refused to open it. i can mention several other proposals made by this same committee regarding other visa categories that have not been implemented.

Because the priority for the government has been to reduce immigration to around tens of thousands since 2010. PSW was scrapped but then 50K route was opened and then heavily abused.

The MAC proposal on Tier 1 entrepreneur was made in 2015 and there has been changes in the route since then. It is very difficult to get on this route and it remains one of the most demanding UK visa categories so let's cut this category some slack

True but applicants got on this route themselves. Running a business is very risky and difficult in current EU's stagnant economy

there are many genuine reasons why people do not extend their entrepreneur visas after their initial application. i have three friends that although are still running their successful businesses have switched category to spousal visa (why remain on this category when you are married to a British citizen). I know another friend that left the country on his own freewill at the expiration of his 3 years visa because his business wasn't successful and he just didn't see the point in investing more money. i am sure the Home Office is aware of some of these scenarios

Sure but their percentage cannot be around 80%. That is very high for switching or simply leaving.

Also note, not ALL applications take 8-10 months to be processed. There are many examples on this forum that got theirs very quickly. Every applicant and business is different, so an applications will be decide on its own merits. As I said many times, HO will logically investigate applicants more if they view them as higher risk for whatever reason

Yet another 2 month approval - despite Christmas/New Year slowdown;
no loss of any imagined travel 'right':
http://www.immigrationboards.com/uk-tie ... 24227.html