Permission to Work – An Update

As flagged in our earlier article the right to work for those who have made a repeat claim for asylum has now been settled by the Supreme Court, in the case of ZO and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] UKSC 36. The three linked cases were all the subject of appeals from the Court of Appeal. Duncan Lewis represented two of the respondents.

There were three principal questions in the Supreme Court: (1) Does Article 11 of the Reception Directive 2003/9/EC¹ apply to a claimant, who has already had an application for asylum finally determined against him but later makes a further application for asylum? (2) Should the matter be referred to the European Court of Justice for a definitive ruling on the meaning of the terms in the directives?², and (3) was Blake J in DT [2008] EWHC 3064 (Admin) (sometimes cited to as DT (Eritrea)) correct to hold that even if article 11 does not apply, it breaches an applicant's rights under article 8 ECHR to refuse