LONDON/ISLAMABAD/LAHORE: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s visa to the United Kingdom remains valid but his application for extension in stay has been turned down by the Home Office with the right to appeal against the decision.
Hussain Nawaz Sharif confirmed on Thursday that his father’s application had been rejected. But, he said, an appeal had already been lodged with an Immigration Tribunal. A Home Office source said Nawaz had been granted an extension in stay since his arrival in the UK two years ago but it was not specified how many times he had been given the extension and why the same was refused this time. Hussain said: “While rejecting the application, the Home Office allowed the right to appeal and the process has already started. We are confident that the Immigration Tribunal will grant extension to Nawaz Sharif taking into consideration all the facts.” The News spoke to four different immigration lawyers who opined that Nawaz has several options available according to the UK’s immigration laws. Hateem Ali, a leading UK immigration solicitor from GSC Solicitors LLP, said: “If the previous visit visa extensions were on the basis of medical grounds (which seems to be the case here) then typically you can keep extending for a total of 18 months. In this particular case, it would appear that the Home Office were no longer willing to keep extending on that basis,” he added.
“If the latest application for extension has been refused with a full right to appeal, the entire appeal process can potentially take anything between nine months to over 20 months to be decided by the Immigration Tribunal. This period does not even take into account any potential subsequent judicial review once all appeal rights have been exhausted. So although Mr Nawaz Sharif has been refused, it is not necessarily the end of the process,” he added.
Immigration solicitor Muhammad Amjad said Nawaz “would have come to the UK as a visitor and he would have applied for an extension on this basis which has been refused. He would be lawfully a resident here pending the appeal. It’s possible the tribunal would still grant him extension in his visit visa even if the appeal was refused”.
Amjad added: “The application on medical grounds would have fallen to be considered outside the immigration rules on human rights grounds namely under Article 8 and possibly also under article 3 of the European convention on human rights (ECHR). These are difficult and complex applications to succeed on. Under Article 3, Nawaz Sharif would need to prove that his health would be at a real risk of serious, rapid and irreversible decline resulting in either intense suffering or substantial reduction in life expectancy due to lack of medical treatment or access to that. This is a very high threshold and very difficult to succeed on. The threshold under Article 8 is lower but there is a huge amount of discretion involved in those applications and they are decided based on what is fair and reasonable based on a concept of proportionality.
“Overall, Nawaz Sharif would continue to be lawfully resident in the UK pending determination of his appeal. Any appeal can take 12-18 months and more.”
Barrister Rashid Ahmed said there were several grounds and precedents which were available under the UK’s immigration laws.
Immigration lawyer Barrister Rashid Ahmed said Nawaz Sharif continues to stay legally in the UK while the Immigration Tribunal is considering his appeal. He said owing to the ongoing backlog caused by the pandemic, it could take nearly two years before a decision is made on Nawaz Sharif’s appeal and in the event his appeal is refused, he has the right to launch the whole process anew through a fresh application.
Solicitor Rashad Aslam said Nawaz Sharif had several options to continue staying lawfully. He said Article 3 of the ECHR provided protection against torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. “In medical claims a claimant may claim their return would amount to inhuman or degrading treatment.”
Meanwhile, Shahbaz Sharif discussed the matter with Nawaz Sharif. In a phone call, the two leaders discussed in detail the decision of the British Home Office. Nawaz shared the legal measures taken in response to the decision by the Home Department and told Shahbaz that his lawyers had filed an appeal against the decision. He also said the appeal had explained in detail the medical reasons that made Nawaz’s stay in the UK unavoidable.
Shahbaz insisted that Nawaz must stay in the UK till his doctors saw it absolutely fit for Nawaz to travel back to Pakistan. He said the entire country and the party were praying for his speedy recovery.