Judicial review is a process by which the Secretary of State, UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) or other government department who has acted outside of its powers in an unfair or disproportionate way, are subject to review by the judiciary.
This is a legal challenge of final resort and when there are no other remedies available. The process is subject to very strict requirements and deadlines and can end up being an expensive process.
Your options
If you have no appeal rights or exhausted your appeal rights and have no other remedy we can consider a judicial review. The first stage of a judicial review is to prepare an initial pre-action protocol letter giving the UKVI a specific timeframe in which to respond. This is sometimes sufficient to get UKVI to review their decision.
However, if the Home Office provide an unsatisfactory response and on occasion, fails to respond to the initial pre-action protocol letter in the specific timeframe, then we need to consider whether to go ahead and lodge a judicial review application with the court, subject to a merit assessment by a barrister. It is then for the court to make a decision as to whether you will be granted permission to proceed with the judicial review and unless settled before hand, may lead to a hearing before a judge.
It is important to get a specialist merit assessment from an experienced barrister as the court has the power to order costs against the losing party and this can amount to thousands of pounds, depending on how far the matter proceeds before it is resolved.
Do we offer legal aid?
We do not offer legal aid, but can represent you on a fee paying basis if you do not qualify for legal aid.
Find out more about the team
