Article 8 ECHR, Family Reunification and the UK’s Supreme Court: Family Matters?

This book focuses on a series of judgments by the UK’s Supreme Court on the application of the right to respect for family life, contained in article 8 ECHR, to immigration decisions. These judgments have required the government to amend several aspects of its family migration policy and have become the centre of legal and political controversy, raising questions about the judicial function in a modern democracy, the influence on the legal system of European human rights law and the difficulties of controlling immigration in a globalised world. They have drawn judges into new territory and there is evidence that the senior judiciary is itself divided. Meanwhile, attempts by the government to reverse these judgments through rule changes and legislative amendment have added new layers to an already complex legal framework. In so doing, the book explains why the relationship between Article 8 and immigration is so legally and political complicated.