| SPOTLIGHT |
The Independent Monitoring Authority for the Citizens' Rights Agreements (IMA) last month issued a reminder to local authorities to recognise all “rights to reside” within the Withdrawal Agreement and EEA EFTA Separation Agreement.
The reminder comes after the recent settlement of Court of Appeal proceedings,in which the IMA had been given permission to intervene.
The IMA was set up to ensure that public bodies uphold the rights of EU and EEA EFTA citizens, and certain members of their families, within the UK and Gibraltar. It ensures these citizens get the same rights as they did before the UK left the EU.
In the Court of Appeal case the local authority had refused an application for homelessness assistance to a citizen with pre-settled status within scope of the Withdrawal Agreement, the IMA revealed.
The citizen in question had a “derivative right to reside”, so the IMA considered the local authority’s refusal of assistance to be “unlawful and contrary to the Withdrawal Agreement”.
The IMA noted that a derivative right to reside is “one where a citizen’s right of residence within the UK derives from another”, in this case, the right derived from a child in education in the UK.
The IMA’s position on the appeal was that the appellant was eligible for housing assistance as the “primary carer of a child in education”.
The IMA said the local authority had “initially proceeded to defend this appeal”. However, the case has now settled on the basis that the local authority has conceded the first ground of appeal, “accepting that the Appellant does have a derivative right to reside in the UK and held this right at the time of an application for homelessness assistance”.
Lottie Winson
