Administrative Law and Human Rights

Instructions to students

Submission deadline: See Student Instructions

Word limit: 1,500 – excess words will not be given credit. . (The real coursework assessment has a word limit of 2,500).

Include headings, footnotes and a bibliography, using OSCOLA for citing/referencing all material used in your Coursework (for further details see Section 4 of the Student Guidance to Coursework in the Assessments area of the Handbook module on ELITE).

Where questions are sub-divided, candidates should not expect the sub-divisions necessarily to be of equal weight.

Marks

This assessment is itself marked out of 100. In the real assessment, but not in this practice assessment, there will also be a separate 45-minute Single Best Answer Question-style examination.

Assessment Criteria:

With the exception of SBAQ assessments, all assessments on the PgDL and on the Conversion Component of both MA Law programmes will be marked according to the Assessment Criteria. These can be found in the Assessments area of the Student Handbook & Course Information module on ELITE.

The Assessment Criteria are also set out in the Schedule below.

Please answer the question below.

In order to simplify immigration laws, Parliament has passed the Deportation Act 2023 (‘the Act’) (fictitious). The Act repeals all existing primary and secondary legislation relating to deportation, including any relevant Home Office guidance. Section 1 of the Act provides that:

‘The Secretary of State for the Home Department may make a deportation order in respect of a person who is not a British citizen where their deportation is deemed conducive to the public good.’

The Act establishes the Deportation Tribunal and provides a right of appeal for any person subject to a deportation order to the Deportation Tribunal.

Davu Quansah came to the UK with his parents from Ghana in 1992 when he was ten years old. The family were granted indefinite leave to remain in 2001. Apart from short holidays to see his extended family Davu has not returned to Ghana since. Davu’s parents both died within a short time of each other five years ago.

Davu met his British wife Emma in 2009 and they married in 2011. They have two children; Vincent aged 10 and Grace who is 8. Grace has a congenital heart defect and regularly requires hospital treatment. Due to Grace’s health problems Emma is unable to work. The children have a good relationship with their maternal grandparents, although they do not see them often as they live several hundred miles away. Davu is a devoted father and has a particularly strong relationship with his son Vincent who he spends a lot of time with due to Grace’s care needs.

Davu works as a builder. In the past he has drunk heavily at weekends with his work colleagues and has received a number of cautions for being drunk and disorderly. Last year he was involved in a fight outside a pub. He was charged with and convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and received a 15-month suspended sentence. Davu was full of remorse after the offence and immediately gave up drinking. Since the offence he spends the weekends at home with his family.

Davu has now received a deportation order from the Home Office. He wishes to appeal against the order on the basis that it breaches his rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Advise Davu.

As part of your answer, please research at least one case decided by the Supreme Court between 2021 and 2023 which applied the criteria in Uner v The Netherlands (2007) 45 EHRR 14. You DO NOT need to explain the facts and reasoning of such case(s), but instead quote them as a recent example of the court applying the relevant criteria.