What is the difference between Immigration directorate instructions and Immigration Rules?

[dushyant]

What is the difference between Immigration directorate instructions and Immigration Rules? (from https://www.gov.uk/topic/immigration-op ... l-guidance)
And what is the overarching document which dictates the Immigration laws in the UK?

[vinny]

The Rules trumps the Guidance.

[secret.simon]

The Rules trumps the Guidance.

Vinny, would I be correct in saying that while the Rules trump the Guidance, the Guidance can fill in gaps and clarify ambiguity in the Rules?

[vinny]

With this interpretation of the rules, who would need the guidance....?

Differences between rules and guidance:

....
At para. 120 (p. 2244 F-G) Lord Clarke said:

"120. It seems to me that, as a matter of ordinary language, there is a clear distinction between guidance and a rule. Guidance is advisory in character; it assists the decision maker but does not compel a particular outcome. By contrast a rule is mandatory in nature; it compels the decision maker to reach a particular result."
...

In R (Munir) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] UKSC 32, [2012] 1 WLR 2192, in which judgment was handed down on the same day as Alvi, one of the issues was whether a published Home Office policy (D5/96) was a rule within the meaning of section 3 (2). The policy related to the circumstances in which enforcement action would not be taken against persons liable to removal who had children in the UK. Lord Dyson said, at para. 45 (p. 2206 F-H):

"If a concessionary policy statement says that the applicable rule will always be relaxed in specified circumstances, it may be difficult to avoid the conclusion that the statement is itself a rule "as to the practice to be followed" within the meaning of section 3(2) which should be laid before Parliament. But if the statement says that the rule may be relaxed if certain conditions are satisfied, but that whether it will be relaxed depends on all the circumstances of the case, then in my view it does not fall within the scope of section 3(2). Such a statement does no more than say when a rule or statutory provision may be relaxed. I have referred to DP5/96 at para 9 above. It was not a statement of practice within the meaning of section 3(2). It made clear that it was important that each case had to be considered on its merits and that certain specified factors might (not would) be of particular relevance in reaching a decision. It was not a statement as to the circumstances in which overstayers would be allowed to stay. It did not have to be laid before Parliament."

Carol Harlow: How not to do things with rules.

[vinny]

Accordingly in my view the correct construction of versions 4-7 of the Guidance is that there is no longer a general policy to allow correction of minor errors: evidential flexibility will only apply in the particular cases provided for by paragraph 245AA. That may seem hard, but the reasons for having a more restricted policy are articulated in the authorities referred to above and summarised in Nyasulu. The mismatch with the Rules which was identified in SH (Pakistan) no longer exists. In fact I strongly suspect that that mismatch was always unintentional and that it was the result of incompetence in ensuring that the requirements of the Rules and the Guidance coincided. It would hardly be the first time that such mistakes have occurred in the Home Office: the web of Rules and Guidance has become so tangled that even the spider has difficulty controlling it.