EU free movement law

Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA) has prepared a new report concerning EU citizens and their EU free movement rights in post-Brexit United Kingdom. 

Following the UK general election on 12/12/2019, which returned a significant majority for the Conservative Party led by Boris Johnson, ILPA assumes that the October 2019 version of the Withdrawal Agreement will be ratified by both parties, and implemented in the UK through the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill.

The recommendations in the report are addressed to policy-makers, to ensure EU residence rights are given proper protection. The report is also designed to provide information to immigration practitioners and the public about the wider debate on EU residence rights.

ILPA suggests that the following legislative protection of residence rights:

  • The rights of EEA+ nationals and their families to continue to reside in the United Kingdom should be guaranteed in primary legislation e.g. an Act of UK Parliament
  • The guarantee should protect all those eligible for settled or pre-settled status at the cut-off date, and those who become eligible later 
  • Persons covered by the legislative guarantee should retain an indefinite right to register, subject to compliance with the rules relating to absences
  • The legislative guarantee should extend to all persons actually awarded settled status or pre-settled status, provided they did not engage in fraud or deliberate misrepresentation in their application
  • The legislative guarantee should be binding upon public bodies carrying out state functions
  • There should be a declaratory model of registration, so that individuals’ right of continuing residence would not be conditional upon registration
  • Official guidance for employers and landlords should allow them to accept specified types of evidence from unregistered individuals, and to give individuals who claim to be eligible the opportunity to register.
  • Legislation should expressly provide that there is a right of appeal both against outright refusals of status under Appendix EU and against grants of pre-settled status by persons seeking settled status
  • All case law of the CJEU concerning concepts of free movement law should be binding in the United Kingdom, irrespective of when the judgments in question were handed down

Source: ILPA

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