How to Challenge a Visitor’s Visa Refusal

I recently had a client who presented a pound sterling account in Ghana for a Visitor’s visa among other documents. Because, the bank account was from Ecobank Ghana, the ECO assumed it was a cedi account without properly looking at the currency and proceeded to convert the pounds’ balance (assuming it is cedis) into pounds again—and concluding that this person did not have sufficient money to cover the cost of her trip to the UK. If the client had 5000 pounds,

the ECO took this for 5000 GHS and converted it into pounds to arrive at 800 pounds.

Looking at the above, it’s clear the ECO erred in his assessment of the evidence, leading him to a wrongful conclusion and hence the refusal. While re-applying to explain this to the next ECO who will assess the new application may seem appropriate, challenging the refusal on the basis that a material fact or evidence was wrongly considered is more prudent in law.

I have had clients who have sent out E-mails to the UK High Commission, Embassy or the Home Office directly in relation to the Visitor’s visa refusal—under the impression they are doing so to challenge the refusal.
The above is a waste of time: these E-mails do not amount to a legal challenge and if you are lucky, you will receive a response telling you exactly this or you wouldn’t get any response at all, meaning, they are telling you to probably ‘piss off’.

As mentioned, you can only mount a proper challenge via Judicial Review (JR) and to do this, you will first have to follow the requirements of the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) by issuing a letter before claim.
A lot of time when an ECO’s decision is challenged properly and in the proper legal manner, the Home Office grabs that opportunity the letter before claim offers to reconsider their own decision. The grounds of challenge are then reviewed by an Entry Clearance Manager (ECM) who may overturn the decision of the ECO.

If the Home Office after reviewing the decision at a senior level maintains the refusal or fails to respond, then a Judicial Review claim can be lodged at the Upper Tribunal. Once this is lodged, the Government Legal Department, acting on behalf of the Home Office will step in to review the decision in light of your JR application once again. If they also maintain the refusal decision, then a judge will decide on the case.

The process of Judicial Review is complex—and dealing with a bureaucratic government department like the Home Office even makes it more confusing. Hence, employing the services of expert Immigration Caseworkers or Solicitors such as those at Adukus Solicitors who are familiar with the process of challenging visa refusals is not really an option but somewhat a necessity.

Note that, you can only challenge Visitor’s visa refusal decisions made in the last 3 months. 

by Chris-Vincent Agyapong Febiri