The British government suffers a defeat in the dispute over reduced rights for EU citizens. The High Court agrees with a regulator that London itself installed after Brexit. According to this, the new rules for the right to stay are illegal.
The UK government has suffered a defeat in court over the rights of EU citizens who settled in the UK before Brexit. As the High Court in London ruled, the current regulation is not in line with the Brexit Treaty. According to this, EU citizens already legally living in Great Britain risk their stay if they do not apply for a second permanent residence permit.
According to the Brexit Treaty, citizens of EU countries who benefited from the free movement of people before Brexit and moved to Great Britain from the EU internal market are allowed to remain in the country. However, according to the current regulations, you have to prove your legal residence in a two-stage procedure. For those who had been in the country for less than five years at the time of leaving, they first had to apply for “pre-settled status”. After five years, a permanent right of residence can be acquired by applying for a “settled status”. However, if this application is not made no later than five years after receiving the “pre-settled status”, EU citizens will lose their entitlements under current law.
On the other hand, the London government’s own supervisory authority for the rights of EU citizens, the Independent Monitoring Authority (IMA), had sued. According to her, otherwise 2.6 million people could lose their rights and be deported simply because they miss the application deadline. IMA General Counsel Rhys Davies welcomed the ruling: “The Withdrawal Agreement provides that people can only lose their rights in very limited circumstances and failure to move from ‘pre-settled’ to ‘settled status’ is not one of them.” The British Home Office, on the other hand, said it was disappointed with the verdict and announced an appeal.
