R London Lee Valley College Ltd v Secretary of State for the Home Department
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Philip Mott |
| Judgment Date | 01 August 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 3045 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/10377/2012 |
| Date | 01 August 2013 |
[2013] EWHC 3045 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
The Strand
London
WC2A 2LL
Mr Philip Mott QC
(Sitting as a Deputy Judge of the Queen's Bench Division)
CO/10377/2012
Mr N Mohammed (instructed via Direct Access) appeared on behalf of the Claimant
Mr Rory Dunlop (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared on behalf of the Defendant
Thursday 1 August 2013
THE DEPUTY JUDGE:
This is a renewed application for permission to challenge a decision of 21 September 2012 to refuse highly trusted sponsor status, to reduce the Certificate of Acceptance for Studies allocation, and to consider revoking the sponsor licence of the claimant college. Permission and interim relief were refused on paper. On 5 July 2013 a further decision was made to revoke the sponsor licence with immediate effect. Interim relief in respect of that was refused on 16 July. There have been applications to stay these proceedings until the decision of the Supreme Court in New London College v Secretary of State for the Home Department. Those applications were refused. The judgments of the Supreme Court, which were delivered on 17 July 2013, do not assist the claimant.
What is left is a challenge to the calculation of the refusal rate of entry clearance to students who were allocated a CAS by the college. In the year from June 2011 to 2012, 26 CASs were issued, out of which the defendant asserts that entry clearance was refused to 15. That is a refusal rate of 57.69%.
The threshold under the defendant's scheme for sponsorship is 20%, which would be 5.2. That is to say, a refusal of up to five students out of 26 would be acceptable; but six or more would be unacceptable.
The initial challenges set out in the claim have been somewhat revised. The way in which it has been put today is this. In two cases there were appeals — one pending (though later disallowed) and the other allowed. One case, it is said, was counted twice. I am doubtful about this last challenge because it is accepted that there were two issues of a CAS, though for the same person. But even if those three cases were removed from the list of 15, the number of refusals would still be very much in excess of 20%.
In the other cases the challenges are on detailed grounds. Two refusals, it is said, were based on technicalities where the defendant should have gone back to the student for further information; two related to issues with English language qualifications, and the applications for entry clearance...
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