Interim CAP – High Court Decision

The UKBA has lost a judicial review on the interim limit for Tier 1 (General) and Tier 2 (General) of the point based system that has made the interim cap, illegal.

The High Court has ruled that “It shows that the Home Secretary cannot simply sideline parliament and the requirements it has imposed to check her powers. It also has important implications for migrants in the UK who were affected by the imposition of an unlawful limit.”

The Immigration Minister Damian Green has however confirmed that the decision of the High Court would not budge the government from its stance of reducing net migration to tens of thousands.

In response to the Judgement, he confirmed “This ruling is about process, not policy - the policy of having a limit has not been found to be unlawful. The court's ruling rests on a technicality. We will set this right in the next few days to ensure we can continue to operate an interim limit.”

It is therefore quite likely for the Govt. to obtain approval from the parliament during it`s next sitting in Jan. 2011 and from that date onwards, the interim cap will be re-instated. The Judicial Review, though successful might not bring the desired results.