CA-2024-001818 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1273

Fecha: 08-Oct-2025

THE EFFECT OF THE POLICY

48.

It is important to appreciate that the Secretary of State’s policy does not involve an absolute prohibition on family reunion for child refugees. The Claimant acknowledges that, but he says that the fact that child sponsors have to satisfy the unjustifiably harsh consequences criterion on a case-by-case basis means that it is inherently inferior to a policy permitting automatic reunion. In particular:

(1)

The process requires proof of a fact-specific and evidence-based case. In some cases families will be deterred from applying for family reunion by the difficulties of preparing such a case, particularly in the light of limited access to the necessary support and the problems of separation. Even where an application is made, the process is inevitably slow, complicated and highly stressful.

(2)

The nature of the criterion means that some applications will be refused by the ECO which would have been granted if a simple relationship-based criterion had been applied. Even if the applicants succeed on an appeal, which itself will not always be the case, that adds to the length of the separation and involves further stress.

49.

It does not appear to be possible to put a figure on how many child refugees suffer those impacts. The starting-point must be the number of child refugees who are present in the UK at any one time: that figure is apparently not known, though it would seem to be in the low thousands. (Footnote: ¹⁰) However, family reunion will not be relevant in all, possibly even most, of those cases: the children may be orphans or have lost touch with their families, or their relationship with their parents may be such that they do not wish to be reunited with them, or the parents may not wish to come to the UK. All that can safely be said is that there will be a substantial cohort of child refugees for whom family reunion is desired and desirable.

50.

Nor is it possible to evaluate the extent of any impact on that cohort except in the broadest terms. There appear to be no figures for how many potentially eligible applications for family reunion are made by the parents and/or siblings of child refugees. There are some indications that the numbers are low, but it is impossible to know how many applications are deterred by the difficulty of the process. (Footnote: ¹¹) Nor do we know what proportion of the applications which are made are successful (either at initial decision or on appeal); and even if we had those figures it could not be assumed that every application which failed would have succeeded if eligibility had been automatic (see para. 23 above). The most that can safely be said is that impacts of the kind identified are liable to occur in a number of cases.