Source: https://lawmostly.com/2017/12/06/international-students-win-right-to-challenge-allegations-of-cheating-in-the-uk-ets-toeic-scandal-home-office/
Timestamp: 2018-11-14 22:39:19
Document Index: 426063889

Matched Legal Cases: ['EWCA ', '§ 91', '§ 94', '§ 98', '§ 90', '§ 116', '§ 115', '§ 156', '§ 133', '§ 87']

International students win right to challenge accusations of cheating in the UK – Law, mostly.
NextBREAKING: Families of EU Nationals Win Court Battle for Right of Appeal
Ben Amunwa	on 6 December 2017
Out of country appeals are not an appropriate remedy for persons whose visas have been cancelled after being accused by the Home Office of cheating in English language tests, the Court of Appeal has decided in Ahsan & Others v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rev 1) [2017] EWCA Civ 2009.
The ongoing saga of the ETS / TOEIC litigation has been previously covered on this blog here, here, here, here and here. The Court of Appeal in Ahsan lamented: “this very messy and unsatisfactory state of affairs“.
2 The arguments on appeal
The Educational Testing Services (‘ETS’) was previously an approved language testing contractor for the Home Office’s. That was until an investigation by BBC Panorama found fraud on an industrial scale taking place at testing centres run by ETS. The company reviewed its test results to assess the full extent of the cheating and provided names of those suspected to the Home Office, having split the test results into those it deemed “invalid” and “questionable”.
RELATED: Officials used “duress and manipulation” to expel foreign students accused of cheating in language tests
The Secretary of State’s position was that an out-of-country appeal was adequate, but even if it wasn’t, the appellants could make human rights claims in the UK that would, if refused, give rise to in-country rights of appeal. Their judicial review claims should be refused for this reason.
A person accused of cheating in ETS/TOEIC cases and who faces a decision to remove them from the UK must have the opportunity to give oral evidence in order that their case is fairly determined by a Court or Tribunal in accordance with the procedural requirements in the right to private and family life in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (§§ 91, 92) and/or under the common law requirements of fairness and access to justice (§ 94);
Out-of-country rights of appeal are not an adequate remedy in most cases because facilities for giving oral evidence by video-link are not currently available (§ 98);
“whether it is realistically possible for evidence to be given by video-link needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis; but I would encourage the Secretary of State and the UT to take a pragmatic view of what is likely to be the position in typical cases and to use these appeals and Kiarie and Byndloss as a useful benchmark.” (§ 90).
Although the point was not fully argued, there will be certain cases where a person who is served with a removal notice under section 10 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, should make a human rights claim and if necessary pursue an in-country right of appeal to the Tribunal instead of judicial review proceedings, subject to the 3 conditions set out at § 116. Tribunal appeals remain the more appropriate place for resolving deception cases (§ 115).
Where a human rights claim is certified as ‘clearly unfounded’ in an ETS case, the Secretary of State must justify why there is no prospect that a person’s oral evidence may rebut the allegation of deception (§ 156).
For those who have brought out-of-country appeals and won, “the Secretary of State ought to take whatever steps were possible to restore successful out-of-country appellants to the position that they would have been in but for the impugned decision.” That includes the grant of Entry Clearance to allow them to return to the UK (§ 133).
RELATED: Court dismisses Theresa May’s appeal in student fraud scandal
a student’s involvement with their course and their college can itself be an important aspect of their private life… Whether those and other factors are sufficient to engage article 8 in any particular case will depend on the particular facts, and I would not venture on any generalisations beyond making the trite point that the longer a student has been here the more likely he or she is to have generated relationships of the necessary quality and depth. (§ 87)
Abujafor	 8 December 2017 at 1:17 am
Whta happen those have been deported.
Khaled	 11 January 2018 at 1:51 pm
As usual a grt elaborated analysis by Mr Ben Amunwa, we all TOEIC victims grateful for such analysis by Mr Amunwa. Thnk u sir for ur time in this regard, ho a lot of professional n victims will benefited from ur post. Weldn, May gd bless u.
Irshad hussain Shah	 6 March 2018 at 11:36 am
Can any one appeal whos deported in 2014 as toeic deception
Ben Amunwa	 6 March 2018 at 1:56 pm
Hi Irshad, please contact me directly by email or using the form on the ‘Contact’ page if you require assistance.
ajay patel	 2 May 2018 at 10:55 pm
Hi I m also victim of toiec exam and I still suffer ,have lost visa and have no way to go still struggling to get to visa in various categories but that deception effect my all future application please advise me what to do next
Ben Amunwa	 5 May 2018 at 3:25 pm
Hi Ajay, as above, please contact me directly by email or using the form on the ‘Contact’ page if you require assistance. Thanks