Post
by vinata » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:23 pm
My understanding is that only Courts can challenge a paticular rule in this country. At the hearing the arguments are heard from both sides and then the judge will normally make a decision. If he finds in the favour of the appelants, then he may also request the HO to amend this particular rule. However, I don't think that MPs can decide on it in the Parliament, as it is outside the scope of their jurisdiction. Judicial review is probably the only way forward.
Previous HSMP holders have won their settlement rights back by going from one court to other for 3 years, and only judicial review ended this process in March 2009 by the court's rulling that HO requirements were against the human rights act. However, this case is different as this type of visa had a provision of settlement built into it from the very begining. But this is not the case with student visas.
The only argument, I believe, as regards psw maintenance rule, could be that the marginal drop in the day to day balances does not constitute the applicants inability to support himself in the UK without the recourse to public funds, particularly when such an applicant ears over £20,000pa, or he has been in the UK for 5 year or so and didn't claim any benefits in the past, so it consequntly could mean that this applicant should not be refused psw. Therefore, some discretion should be exercised.
Not exercising discretion is against article 6 of human rights act, and all other non-points based applications are entitled to some form of it, but not those which are points based. So, if non-exersing discretion is rulled out to be unlawful by the court, it could be possible for the case workes to be flexible with applications. But at the moment everybody who does not satisfy the rules is refused straight away without taking into consideration all other facts, such as good immigration history or regular income levels.
This is my own view on this problem. It may be different from what others might think.