Right to Work in UK Law

The solution may be found in an examination of the underlying purpose that leads Community law to recognise the derivative right of free movement for family members of EU nationals exercising Treaty rights. Those rights, of course, apply to family members even if they are not themselves EU nationals.

Thus, the family member's presence in the UK (and right to work) is relied upon not in order to avoid a ‘clog’ or ‘chill’ on the exercise of the right of the EU national child but rather in order to create that very right itself – the right from which the family member then seeks to derive his own right to reside as her carer/parent.

The common law of England has for centuries recognised that a man has a right to work at his trade or profession without being unjustly excluded from it. He is not to be shut out from it at the whim of those having the governance of it. If they make a rule which enables them to reject his application arbitrarily or capriciously, not reasonably, that rule is bad.

No person can work at his trade or profession except by their permission. When a man is wrongly rejected or ousted by one of these associations, has he no remedy? I think he may well have, even though he can show no contract. The Courts have power to grant him a declaration that his rejection and ouster was invalid and an injunction retiring the association to rectify their error. He may not be able to get damages unless he can show a contract or a tort.

The employer pays for work and the worker works for his wages. In an action by a worker to recover his pay he must allege and be ready to prove that he worked or was willing to work. In the present case the plaintiff disentitled himself for his salary for Saturday morning because he declined to work on Saturday morning in accordance with his duty.

Second, we do not see any basis for deciding that income derived from the first and second appellants' current employment can establish their daughter's right to reside. The circularity in establishing the child's rights and then the parents' rights is no less apparent in these appeals. Here, the child's self-sufficiency is dependent upon her parents working. They only have a temporary basis for doing so for so long as they have limited leave and are permitted to work.

An EU national who claims to be self-sufficient is not asserting a right to enter and reside in another EU state on the basis of economic activity in that country. Rather, he relies upon his resources which exist independently of any economic activity in the host Member state. Once that is established, his family members have a derivative right to accompany or join him. In addition, the central EU legislative instruments give family members a right to work in that the host Member state.