Court of Appeal overturns Upper Tribunal decision of Sala on right of appeal for Extended Family Members

The Upper Tribunal decision of Sala (EFMs: Right of Appeal) [2016] UKUT 00411 (IAC) has been overturned by the Court of Appeal.

The Upper Tribunal found in its August 2016 decision that there is no statutory right of appeal against the decision of the Secretary of State not to grant a Residence Card to a person claiming to be an Extended Family Member.

Image credit: UK GovernmentMore analysis of the effects of that decision can be found here (by Declan O'Callaghan of Landmark Chambers).

Yesterday, Rajiv Sharma of The 36 Group Chambers said on Twitter that the Court of Appeal had overturned the decision. Sharma appeared for the appellant alongside Ramby de Mello of No5 Chambers.

According to Sharma, the Court of Appeal confirmed that the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006 do confer a right of appeal to Extended Family Members.

In a blog post on Free Movement today, Sharma expanded on yesterday's developments, noting: "The effect of the decision is that all those appeals pending under the 2006 Regulations should now be able to proceed. Those that have resulted in notices of invalid appeal will need to be challenged. This point may be slightly academic now, in the sense that only the 2006 Regulations are directly affected, but the path to a challenge to the 2016 Regulations now exists."