Judicial Review against Home Office by Turkish ECAA Businesspersons

[themis]

Up until 16 March 2018, Turkish nationals had the right to start a business in the UK with the right to settle (obtain Indefinite Leave to Remain/ILR) in the UK after 4 years of continuous residence providing they met the requirements of the visa route for Turkish ECAA Businesspersons. Visa holders were initially granted a one-year visa. They could then apply for a three-year extension, at the end of which they were eligible for ILR, free of a Home Office application fee.*

On 16 March 2018, the Home Office made a shocking announcement** saying they will no longer accept ILR applications made under this category, with immediate effect. Three months later, on 15 June 2018, they re-opened the ILR route with more onerous requirements (a 5-year residence requirement, English and Life in the UK tests, a hefty application fee of £2,389). ***

Roughly 12,500 people****, who entered this category with the legitimate expectation that they would be eligible to apply for ILR in four years’ time and have official letters from the Home Office confirming this, are no longer able to do so. And a family of four applying for ILR will now have to pay almost £10,000 - a huge sum they never budgeted for. Applying these changes retrospectively to existing visa holders is extremely unfair, so we are raising money to challenge it.

We are raising money to launch a judicial review challenge against the Home Office’s unfair and retrospectively effective changes to the Immigration Rules that apply to the settlement rights of Turkish businesspeople in the UK.

You can visit and get the new updates on the matter on weblink not in English removed by moderator

Any ideas which NGO's, political organisations, institutions would be helpful to approach to help us reach our goal of raising £100,000 of which we've raised £30,000 so far, to cover the cost of HO defense in case we've lost the case.
I know the same thing happened to HSMP visa holders before and they managed to challenge the HO and won so no retrospective changes could be made to the current visa holders.
Any experience from those who were involved in fundraising against the HO would be appreciated along with any ideas that might help us raise the necessary funds to legally stand up to this unfairness.

[secret.simon]

While I wish you best of luck in your endevour, I would urge caution.

I remember having read an online article (which I could not locate even after an hour of research) a while back (six months to a year) that the Home Office learnt from the HSMP judgment and have, over a period of time, rewritten the Immigration Rules to make them immune to the type of "legitimate expectations" challenge in the HSMP judgment.

And of course, how much can legitimate expectations be expected in the context of a fluid political environment? Have a look at this blog post on a 2016 judgment of the English Court of Appeals, which covers "legitimate expectations", albeit in the context of EU law and renewable energy subsidies.

According to the judgment, for legitimate expectations to be involved, there should be a "promotion by the public authority in question by means of the giving of a precise, unconditional and unambiguous assurance, whether by words or conduct, of an expectation as to how it would behave in future. The same approach applied to the related principles of legal certainty and foreseeability". That is a high threshold to meet.

Jean Lambert, London's sole Green MEP, has written to the Home Secretary on this matter. That letter makes reference to a judgment of the Upper Tribunal in early 2017.

I am not a lawyer and I wish you the best of luck. But be aware that the legal context of the field has changed significantly since 2008.