A Home Office policy that leaves children in limbo by making successive grants of short periods of leave fails to consider the welfare and best interests of the child, the High Court has held.
In SM and TM and JD and Others v SSHD [2013] EWHC 1144 (Admin), Mr Justice Holman ruled the policy unlawful.
The case concerned foreign national children who were granted discretionary leave to remain for three years under Art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights when the Home Office policy DP5/96 was withdrawn.
Such children were usually granted indefinite leave to remain under the old regime. Sophie Freeman, instructing solicitor at Coram Children’s Legal Centre, said the judgment recognised that repeated grants of temporary status could be “damaging to the welfare of children and contrary to their best interests”.
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