Stanley College London Uk Ltd v The Secretary of State for the Home Department
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Clive Lewis |
| Judgment Date | 26 March 2012 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 1122 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/11142/2012 |
| Date | 26 March 2012 |
[2013] EWHC 1122 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Clive Lewis QC
(Sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge)
CO/11142/2012
Mr M Rai (instructed by Deccan Prime Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the Claimant
Mr M Donmall (instructed by The Treasury Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the Defendant
THE DEPUTY JUDGE: I shall be granting permission and interim relief. I will give a short judgment as this has been a contested interim relief application.
This is a renewed application for permission to apply for judicial review, initially of a decision of the defendant contained in a letter dated 25~September 2012 and maintained thereafter, and also for interim relief designed to remove the effects of the revocation of the claimant's sponsorship licence.
In brief, students wishing to come to the United Kingdom to study must satisfy a number of requirements. One of the requirements is that they have what is known as a Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies, or CAS for short. The CAS must be issued by an institution with a Tier 4 (General) student sponsor licence.
The system is described in detail in the judgment of the Court of Appeal in R(New London College Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 51. The claimant is a limited company which is a provider of educational courses. It was incorporated in June 2001. It has had an independent investigation which Mr Rai for the claimants took me to this morning, which says, in effect, that it is providing a good educational opportunity for students.
The claimant was granted a sponsor's licence on 9 March 2011. I am told that it then had to apply for what is known as a highly trusted sponsor status within 12 months. It applied for that status on or about 20 March 2012.
There is guidance indicating when a sponsor will be considered for that status. One of the requirements —there are a number —is that the percentage of individuals granted a CAS who are ultimately refused leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom to study is less than 20 per cent.
The purpose of that requirement is that colleges should be ensuring that those persons to whom they provide a CAS are genuinely intending to and can study in the United Kingdom.
The lawfulness of that policy has been recognised by the divisional court in R(on the Application of West London Vocational Training College Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWHC 31 (Admin) and also R(on the application of London College of Management Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWHC 1029 (Admin).
And this morning Mr Donmall for the Secretary of State took me to the recent decision of the Court of Appeal in R(on the application of WGGS Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWCA Civ 177 which confirmed the lawfulness of that policy; confirmed that routinely the Secretary of State is not required to consider the individual reasons why a student has been refused a CAS. It also confirms that that level is fixed at 20 per cent and includes, in effect, a margin for error, where the sponsor will not be at fault in some way in having granted the CAS.
In all those judgments, however, the court recognised that there may be particular cases where the application of a mandatory 20 per cent refusal policy might result in unfair or disproportionate results. In such circumstances, exceptionally, the Secretary of State may have to consider the individual circumstances of refusal to determine whether or not to depart from its policy of refusing sponsor status where there has been 20 per cent or more refusals.
In the present case, the defendant refused the application on 25 September 2012. And the decision letter said that it was unable to award the highly trusted sponsor status and the Secretary of State would shortly be commencing action to revoke the existing sponsor licence. In fact, licence was revoked on 12 November 2012.
The decision letter gave its reasons: that the number of renewed applications was 33. Of these, eight were refused, which gave a refusal rate of 24.24 per cent, which was above the threshold of 20 per cent.
Pausing there, I note that without only two of the cases where leave to enter had been refused, the refusal rate would in fact have fallen below 20 per cent. Solicitors for the defendant wrote on 1 October 2012. In addition, and more importantly, the college itself wrote on 12 October 2012. It is not clear when that letter was received by the Secretary of State, and Mr Donmall very fairly said that, in the confirming letter from the Secretary of State of 15 October 2012, the Secretary of State did not appear to be addressing the arguments put by the College in its letter of 12 October 2012.
The college pointed out that in relation to four identified cases of refusal of entry clearance, the refusal in fact was based on what was said to be errors on the part of the entry clearance officer, and they attached the relevant documents.
The four cases are also dealt with in a statement from Mr Parvinder Singh, who is a director of the college. I am satisfied that in relation to two, and possibly three, of the cases, it is arguable that an error may have been made by the entry clearance officer. In two cases, it appears, at first sight, that the relevant documents establishing adequate funds may have been submitted in accordance with the guidelines.
In the third case, on the material that I have seen, there arguably may have been an error by the entry clearance officer in deciding whether the particular student...
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