Home and Away: Using Article 8 ECHR to Secure Local Authority Accommodation for Migrants Subject to Immigration Control and Lacking Status (1.5 hours CPD)

Please note that this event is now fully booked and we are unable to take further bookings

This seminar identifies the practical and legal issues arising when trying to secure accommodation from local authorities for persons subject to immigration control (PSICs) and their families, who lack the immigration status necessary to access mainstream housing and who need to rely on the right to respect for private life and family life protected under Article 8 ECHR.

The seminar focuses on:

• Practical problems facing irregular and undocumented migrants
• The framework under Schedule 3 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002
• Using Article 8 to secure accommodation when immigration representations have/have not been made to the Home Office
• The interaction between local authority support and Home Office support when immigration claims are defective (made by post, etc) or accommodation is sought pending consideration of fresh immigration applications
• The right to respect for private life and family life in European Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg) case-law
• The position after R (Clue) v Birmingham City Council
• The special position of long-term migrants and migrants with children
• The public interest

Housing and community care lawyers and advisers often have to prepare representations to local authority staff who are not specialists in immigration law, where applicants for assistance have outstanding applications to the Home Secretary which either implicitly or expressly raise grounds under Article 8 ECHR. On other occasions no application has been made to the Home Secretary but a refusal to provide support will arguably result in a breach of the applicant's Article 8 rights.

The seminar will equip practitioners who are not immigration lawyers to make representations on behalf of PSICs which are legally up-to-date, useful and appropriate. In making such representations to local authorities, practitioners will reduce the need for subsequent litigation, as the appropriate legal points will have been made at the pre-action stage.

In particular it will assist where a local authority's refusal to provide support will result in a breach of the person's rights under Article 8 ECHR.

The speakers will also discuss tactics that might be employed where applications and/or representations have yet to be made to the Home Secretary and/or applications have been made but are defective.

Adrian Berry and Maya Naidoo are members of the Garden Court Chambers Housing Team, who have considerable experience of cases arising out efforts to secure accommodation from local authorities for migrants with complex immigration issues.

CPD

1.5

Speakers

Adrian Berry and Maya Naidoo