Permanent R2R through jobseeking for 5 years

Hi all

Has anyone had any success with arguing a permanent right to reside due to jobseeking and receipt of JSA for 5 years, where person has never worked in UK?

A jobseeker is a qualified person under the EEA (Immigration)) REGS 2006 so a permanent R2R should be possible due to residence in accordance with those Regs - or am I missing something?

Thanks!

I’m waiting for an appeal date for a fairly similer scenario. Your client appears to meet the criteria for PR2R and has done exceptionally well to meet EEA 2006 reg 6(4) for 5 years!

Mick - thanks for your reply.

What are the DWP arguing in your appeal?

I have an A8 national, been here over 5 years leagally (completed 12 month WRS etc) either working or on JSA as a jobseeker. Has her disabled Mum over now so am trying to get client off JSA and onto IS (she recieves CA) However Wick DWP Immigration Office do not accept the 5 year R2R arguement so am at appeal. Hey ho

Applying for a EEA3 from UKBA could help:

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/eucitizens/documents-eea-nationals/applying/

Shouldn’t be necessary but given the decisions I’ve seen from Wick, I’m not really sure they’re aware that the permanent RtR exists.

Hi, I’ve got a similar hearing coming up.  It’s been adjourned once already and that hearing both the presenting officer and judge indicated they will be looking at whether my client, as a job seeker, had reasonable chance of finding work eg. did she learn to speak English etc.  I think it will be hard to quantify.

I suppose the obvious response to that is that if JCP were not satisfied that she had a reasonable prospect they would have sanctioned her?

Would the argument be along these lines;

Eu Directive 2004/38 is silent on the R2R of jobseekers who have never worked, as opposed to former workers who are now jobseekers. So EEA Regs 2006 at Reg 6(4) is more generous, by defining a jobseeker as someone who enters UK looking for work and has “a genuine chance of being engaged”. Therefore the test under domestic law is directly relevant and the fact that this person was never sanctioned shows that they continued to satisfy the rules for JSA, which include being available for and actively seeking work as well as having a current jobseekers agreement - from which it is not too far too extrapolate that evevry time they signed on they had a genuine chance of being engaged?

As far as I can see the “reasonable prospects” test only comes directly into JSA law if someone imposes restrictions on availablity etc.

I would imagine the problem will also be one of prejudice through hindsight i.e if your client had a genuine chance of being engaged then how come she was unemployed for 5 years? To which I guess the response could be that the client was “tested” every 2 weeks and one has to view the 5 year period as a series of these, with a genuine chance on each of those 130 occasions?

That’s a creative and well structured argument and I hope if its run it succeeds.  But, to play devils advocate, I would argue that the “genuine chance of being engaged” test is primarily a question of fact in each case, as opposed to one of law in its pure sense.

Thus depending on all the specific facts in any particular case I suspect that the longer that a person is unemployed will be a factor of whether the test is met or not and it will be difficult to draw precise ‘rules’ as to how long the period could be before the test is not met.  Thus I think it will probably need an UT to sort the matter out.