‘The Court of Appeal has held that by refusing Mr Ozmen—a Turkish national—leave to remain in the UK as a businessperson pursuant to the European Community Association Agreement (or “ECAA”) between the UK and Turkey, the first instance decision-maker, the administrative reviewer and even the judge conducting a judicial review had all fallen into error in rejecting Mr Ozmen’s proposal on the basis of a superficial search resulting in wrong factual information about the viability of one potential customer. That flaw had undermined the decision-making at all levels. It was also quite irrational to reject the entire application on the basis of an analysis of evidence about the viability of one customer where the overall scheme of the evidence about four potential customers showed that there was broad demand for Mr Ozmen’s services. Mr Ozmen appealed against the dismissal of his claim for judicial review of the SSHD’s refusal to grant him leave to remain in the UK as a businessperson under the ECAA. He had arrived in the UK having been granted leave to enter as a short-term student in December 2019 and in May 2020, he applied for leave to remain here as a business person. His plan was to work as a mobile barber in and around the town of Glossop (Derbyshire) and he had submitted a detailed proposal with his application. On 15 March 2021, his application was refused and his administrative review application was unsuccessful on 7 February 2022 and he was advised to leave the country.’
EIN Blog, 5th December 2023
Source: www.ein.org.uk
