Indians take UK government to court

LONDON: Likening the British government to Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, 49,000 people, mostly Indian professionals and their families are to get a court hearing next week over their bid to block changes to the terms of their stay in Britain on the grounds of human rights and race relations.

The High Court will hear the challenge mounted by the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme (HSMP) Forum on March 5 on the government order that made retrospective changes to the criteria under which skilled non-European Union immigrants were allowed to live and work in Britain.

As of Saturday, skilled immigrants who are already in Britain under HSMP visas will have to prove that they are earning at least £40,000 a year and were below 32 years of age when they applied for their visas — conditions that were not originally listed.

A new Australian-style Points Based System (PBS) kicked in Saturday in what the government called the biggest shake-up in British immigration laws in decades. HSMP visa holders who started coming to Britain in 2002 now have to reapply under the PBS and have to score a minimum 75 points — awarded on the basis of salary, age, qualification and ability to speak English — in order to be allowed to stay on and work in Britain.
 
Having left India and raised their families in Britain, members of the HSMP Forum argue that the retrospective nature of the changes is a violation of human rights — a view that has the backing of the British parliament’s influential Joint Committee on Human Rights.