Tough rules, passed two years ago to stop illegal immigrants using fake marriages to enter Britain were declared unlawful by an Appeal Court here.
LONDON: Tough rules, passed two years ago to stop illegal immigrants using fake marriages to enter Britain were declared unlawful by an Appeal Court here.
Judges said the regulations brought in to block thousands of alleged "marriages of convenience" breached human rights laws.
The Appeal Court which upheld an earlier High Court ruling said this was a "disproportionate interference" in the human right to marry.
Lord Justice Buxton said the scheme could only be lawful if it prevented sham marriages intended to improve the immigration status of one of the parties.
"To be proportionate, a scheme must either properly investigate individual cases or at least show that it has come close to isolating cases that very likely fall into the target category," he said on Wednesday.
"It must also show that the marriages targeted do indeed make substantial inroads into the enforcement of immigration control," he said.
Reacting to the verdict, British Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said he was considering an appeal against it.
"Since we introduced these checks the number of suspicious marriage reports has collapsed from 3,740 to less than 300 by the end of May 2005," Byrne said.
Hundreds of couples including a few from India who say they have been prevented from marrying may now try to claim compensation.
Under the regime, introduced by David Blunkett when he was home secretary, non-European Union citizens effectively needed Government permission to marry. They had to attend designated register offices and pay 135 pounds for a certificate of approval.
According to a Government estimate, 10,000 marriages a year were bogus in Britain. The official figure was around 3,700 in 2004.
Two years ago, an Indian couple was jailed here for running a marriage racket and asked to pay nearly 1 million pounds they earned from it.
The Regional Asset Recovery Team, a multi-agency group which includes a specialist from the Crown Prosecution Service, London, obtained confiscation orders for 849,300 pounds against Jaswinder Gill, and 130,000 pounds against her husband Darshan on April 5.
Jaswinder Gill who organized bogus marriages to enable Indian men to claim UK citizenship, was jailed for 10 years in April 2005.
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