New long residence case

Free Movement – In the case of MD (Jamaica) & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 213 the Court of Appeal has dismissed two appeals against refusals under the long residence immigration rules.

In both cases the immigrants had short gaps in their lawful residence and had been refused under the ten years rule. One of them had a gap of just 38 days on one occasion. The Court followed a strict interpretation of the rules and also dismissed the appeals under Article 8, upholding the decisions of the tribunal below.

This is not the first time long residence has featured on this blog and in recent case law. UKBA have been changing their approach to the rules quite significantly over the last few years, scrapping a fairly generous policy then re-introducing a less generous version of it more recently. However, the Court of Appeal is quite clear: the rules mean what they say and to succeed under the rules the residence must be continuous and lawful.

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