I am a regular visitor to this forum and have found it really helpful over the years and really hope I can get some help with my ongoing battle with the HO.
I apologise in advance for the long post but this has been years of back and forth with the HO and would appreciate any advice.
I applied for EEA2 EFM on the 15th of Dec. 2015 and got a refusal (without right of appeal) from the HO dated 15th of Nov 2016. The reason for refusal was that I had applied four times in the past (all refused, some appealed) and that they are relying on the judgment of the last appeal which was dismissed. That they don’t see any new evidence on the current application. This is incorrect, my lawyer addressed the last application and I provided new evidence of dependency/ membership of household.
Here’s a background of my past applications
1. 2010 – refused as they claimed I did not provide my sponsor proof of ID and that we are not related. This was appealed and the judge confirmed we are related and that the ID was sent but not enough evidence of dependency
2. 2012 – Fresh application with new evidence – refused due to my sponsor being self-employed, that there was not enough evidence to proof self- employment. This was appealed again but my lawyer had two hearings on the same day and told me he had asked for the case to be adjourned. The tribunal claimed they did not receive any notice of adjournment from me and went ahead with the appeal without any representation from me. This was again dismissed
3. 2013 – Another application this time my sponsor was in employment. This again was refused as they said that the money my sponsor was sending to me in the country where we came from was lower than what I was earning (this should not be a factor). I appealed again got a hearing date but my sponsor could not attend due to an emergency. The hearing went well but the home office representative did not have any question except for why my sponsor was not there. The judge again dismissed because he was not able to ask my sponsor questions and could not make a decision based on hearing from me alone.
4. 2014 – re-applied again with detailed information of both dependency and membership of household. Refused but I decided to appeal this on my own as we had spent a lot money on lawyers and this turned out not good because I sent photocopies of my documents as I didn’t know I had to send originals. The judge said the photocopies were not legible, that the grounds of appeal were not constructed well and that there was a lot of documents without references to what they were. He dismissed this as well.
5. 2015 – my most recent application refused.
The interesting thing is that I called the HO in August, September and October to get an update on the application as my lawyer had not heard anything. On all occasion, I was told that a decision had not been made and asked if I spoke to my lawyer. On the 18th of October my lawyer then sent a letter of complaint to the HO. On the 24th of October, I got a letter that my driving licence is being revoked so I replied saying I had an application in. I got a response saying they have checked with the HO and there’s no record of an application or an Appeal. My lawyer then contacted the HO and he was told that a letter was sent on the 3rd of July but they would not give him a tracking no for what they claimed was sent to him. On the 13th of November my Lawyer got an update on his complaint and the complaint officer said and I quote
‘I have asked the operational manager of the relevant department to assess the circumstances relating to the matter you have complained about. With this work now complete, I have based my response on their findings. I am upholding your complaint.
You have said that your client made an EEA application December 2015 and you are concerned that you have not received any correspondence from us regarding your client. You ask for your client’s claim to be considered and a decision made available to you.
The department has advised that a new Right of Appeal date will be despatched to yourselves today’.
This suggests to me that a decision was made in July but for some reasons they did not send the decision to my lawyer. Instead of granting an appeal as indicated by the complaints officer, they then sent a refusal letter dated the 15th of Nov as though the decision was just being made.
I am aware there’s a new law ‘Sala’ that takes away the right of appeal of EEA EFM but they clearly have handled my application with so much disrepute and disregard and made me wait 11 months to send a decision that they had made back in July which would have given me a right of appeal. This can’t be right.
My lawyer proposes that we go for Judicial review but as that is something I have no knowledge of with a lot of money involved I would really like to get opinions on this or any other avenue to explore.
Thank you again.
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