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Employers: Implementation of the Supreme Court judgment in ZO (Somalia)

19 August 2010 As a result of the Supreme Court's judgment of 28 July in the case of ZO (Somalia), we are obliged to allow failed asylum seekers who have made further submissions asserting a fresh claim for asylum to apply for permission to work if:

  • their further submissions have been outstanding for 12 months or more; and
  • the delay is not their fault.
Changes to the Immigration Rules giving effect to this judgment have been laid today, and will come into force on 9 September 2010. We will be... gin considering applications from eligible failed asylum seekers under the amended Immigration Rules from that date. This judgment will primarily affect failed asylum seekers who:
  • initially claimed asylum before 5 March 2007 (which means that their cases are managed by our case resolution directorate); and
  • have already made further submissions.
We aim to conclude all of these cases by the summer of 2011, and are on track to do so. This policy will therefore only have a short-term effect, and anyone making a further submission now is unlikely to be affected by the judgment. The changes to the Immigration Rules will restrict the type of work that can be done by asylum seekers and failed asylum seekers who are granted permission to work. They will only be entitled to take up a job which is included on the list of shortage occupations published by the UK Border Agency. Asylum seekers and failed asylum seekers will not be allowed to be self-employed or engaged in setting up a business. You can find the list of shortage occurations, and an assessment of the new policy's likely impact, under 'Related documents' on the right side of this page. These restrictions will ensure that, like other foreign workers, eligible asylum seekers and failed asylum seekers are diverted to occupations where a national shortage of skilled labour has been identified and thereby do work which benefits the UK economy. We will review this policy again next year. UPDATE - 09 September 2010 We have now published an equality impact assessment of the new policy. You can find this under 'Related documents' on the right side of this page.
News via UK Border Agency