64 years old Pakistani mother Ghulam Sughra’s deportation halted

By Amjad Malik
London High Court has halted the removal of a 64 years old Pakistani mother who was asked to leave by UK border agency after 17 years of stay in UK.

Ghulam Sughra, a widow of Rochdale came to UK on 9 May 1993 to see his son Akhtar Mahmood a British citizen. She applied on 5 Sept 1993 to stay with his son as a dependant mother under Immigration rules and since then has been circling around lawyers and home office decisions to stay or leave. Despite the fact that her all 3 children who are all British citizens reside in UK and her British father Fazal Karim who passed away in 1997 at Bradford. Her husband Abdul Ghafoor died in 1980 in Pakistan. She has no body in Pakistan who could look after her in this old age. UK Border Agency asked her to leave UK on 23 September 2009, and no right of appeal to an immigration judge was given.

Her lawyer served a notice on British Home Secretary on 29 September 09 that if the decision is not reviewed, they will file a judicial review before a high court judge.

UK Border Agency maintained their decision on 5 October 2009 and asked the British family members to accompany their mother if needed, and saw no unreasonableness in this line of reasoning. UKBA wrote, “It is accepted that during the time your client has been in the UK She will have established a private life, however, it is considered that the private life had been established in the knowledge that she had no legal basis to remain in the United Kingdom. In order to protect the wider interests and rights of the public, it is vital to maintain effective immigration control. In pursuit of that aim the Secretary of State believes that any interference with her family and/or private life, would be a legitimate, necessary and proportionate response and in accordance with the law.”It went one step further and wrote, “while your client and her family might prefer to live in the United Kingdom, no reason has been advanced as to why they can not return, as a family unit, to her country of origin and rebuild their ties there just as they have done in the United Kingdom.”

On 9 November Amjad Malik filed a high court writ under case ref CO/13412/2009 and sought a stay of her removal and judicial review of the home secretary’s decision on account that it merits judicial oversight as it infringes a widow mother’s Article 8 rights to have a family life and her deportation will breach those rights.

On 10 May a High Court Judge HHJ Raynor QC sitting as a Judge of the high Court at Manchester granted permission to challenge the UK Border agency decision dated 5 October and the ruling observed, “It seems to me to be arguable that the determination of the claimant’s Article 8 claim and her application for discretionary leave were flawed by a failure properly to take account of the very considerable delays in reaching immigration decisions in her case, and by the suggestion (in the letter of 5 October 2009) that her family members lawfully resident and settled in the UK might choose to return as a family with her to Pakistan, and by the failure to consider the IR 395 C considerations.”

Pakistani citizens lawyer Amjad Malik has invited the UK Border Agency to withdraw their decision, and grant Ghulam Sughra permanent residency. The matter is likely to go to a full court hearing on 12 July 2010 before Administrative Court at Manchester and may have repercussions on long residence application under new Tory-Lib Dem led immigration decision making process.  Lib Dems raised legitimate expectations of immigrants by calling for amnesty for all those who are here for 5 years, since they are in coalition govt, its a test for them and their voters how they answer the victims of the system like Ghulam Sughra who is asked to leave taking her British children with her.