JACKSON & Canter has notched up what it hopes will be one of Merseyside’s first victories in the new Supreme Court.
The firm, which is one of Liverpool’s largest legal aid practices, represented a Somali woman who faced being cut off from her family by the UK’s immigration system.
But lawyer Peter Simm hopes after a hearing last week the Law Lords will allow her mother and niece to come into the country.
Mr Simm’s client was Anab Ahmed, who settled in Toxteth after fleeing to the UK as a refugee.
Her mother, Khadija, and niece, Malyuun, are desperate to come here after being displaced from their home into neighbouring Ethiopia by the Somali civil war.
But Mrs Ahmed cannot act as their official sponsor because she is on state benefits.
Her own daughter, Ayan, should have been able to put herself forward as a third party sponsor. She is working full time and has offered to pledge two-thirds of her income to her grandmother and cousin.
But UK immigration officials in Addis Ababa rejected Khadija and Malyuun’s application when they asked to come here almost four years ago.
Mr Simm first represented Mrs Ahmed at an immigration court hearing in Stoke to try to get that decision overturned.
He told LDP Legal: “[In Stoke] Ayan gave really, really good evidence and the judge accepted the case and allowed the appeal.
“But the Home Office then appealed the decision and it went to the Immigration Appeals Tribunal, who overturned the judge’s decision. We took it to the Court of Appeal, which upheld the tribunal decision, saying that you can’t have third party support.”
At the Supreme Court, Mr Simm relied on a precedent he helped set in a case in the 1990s. Then he acted for Oldham-based Arman Ali and convinced the courts to allow him to rely on third party support for his incoming family.
But, according to Mr Simm, the Government has been slow in responding to the law change.
Mr Simm added: “The Arman Ali case found that you could have third party support and then there was a series of third party decisions that went against that. That came under a lot of criticism in the Supreme Court [last week] because there had been no real justification for those.”
The Law Lords will deliver their official judgment in around six weeks. Mr Simm is optimistic of winning because they did not ask to hear any response to the arguments given by the Home Office, indicating they would come down on his client’s side.
