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Home Office bound by its own policy

01 January 1994

A blow was struck for accountability in the High Court in December, when the Home Office was told it could not ignore its own guidelines in deporting members of families established in Britain, and was ordered not to deport Benjamin Amankwah, a Ghanaian who had overstayed in Britain but was married to a British citizen. Mr Amankwah's case was a test case whose outcome will affect hundreds of people awaiting deportation. In recent years test cases before the European Court of Human Rights have ruled against expulsion of family members in circumstances which would prevent family life from being resumed in another country, and so would violate Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In January 1993 the Home Office put out an internal instruction which urged immigration officers making deportation decisions to bear in mind Article 8. It set out a number of situations in which deportation "should not be initiated or pursued", including "a genuine and subsisting marriage to a partner settled in Britain". The instruction was leaked in May 1993, but when lawyers for proposed deportees asked the Home Office to follow its recommendations, they were told that the instruction was not policy and did not have to be followed.

Immigration advisers have long been angry at the system of Home Office discretion which operates in parallel with the statutory immigration rules. The discretion is more generous and flexible than the rules themselves, but is operated arbitrarily, with no rhyme or reason. Now the High Court has upheld the view that, once the Home Office has instructed itself to behave along certain lines, it must do so or at least give a reasoned explanation if it departs from its policy.

Independent 11.12.93