Migrants’ lawyers stall cases, say judges

IMMIGRATION lawyers are using delaying tactics to keep illegal immigrants in Britain, High Court judges have said.

Law firms are “buying time” by filing endless “hopeless” appeals and applications “with a view to generating new Home Office decisions” and keeping the process going for longer, two senior judges said.

“The longer the case goes on the more scope there is for an applicant to begin to develop an Article 8 ‘private life’ claim, for example by getting married (sometimes through a sham process) or having (or claiming to have) children,” they added.

They warned that courts were used as a “continuing game played between applicants and the Home Office” and judges were “distracted dealing with abusive cases” leading to long waits for “genuine and important disputes” to be heard. In some cases, law firms that have “promised high quality specialist services instruct paralegals and unqualified persons to draft applications which fall well below acceptable standards and which judges must reject as unarguable and totally without merit,” they said. In a ruling published yesterday, Lady Justice Sharp and Mr Justice Green criticised three law firms – David Wyld & Co, Sabz, and Londonbased Topstone Solicitors – for a “serious and persistent failure to adhere to proper standards” and referred them to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.