EU Law Dependency and Education: Singh (appellant) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department (respondent) [2022] EWCA Civ 1054
Whether or not education could count as an essential living need in dependency cases under EU law was the key issue in the case of Singh (appellant) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department (respondent) [2022] EWCA Civ 1054 before the Court of Appeal. The Appellant, Mr. Singh, arrived in the UK in June 2012 after receiving permission to enter as a Tier 4 general student. Mr. Singh was an Indian national and was the nephew of an EEA resident exercising treaty rights in the UK. He submitted five unsuccessful applications for an EEA residence card after his immigration leave expired, on the grounds that he was reliant on his EEA resident uncle and thus should be treated as an extended family member under the law. It was the denial of these EEA residence cards which Mr. Singh was contesting.
The First Tier Tribunal determined that the appellant had not proven a need for the EEA sponsor’s financial assistance in order to fulfil his basic needs, nor that those basic needs could not be satisfied in the absence of that assistance. The First Tier Tribunal determined that Mr. Singh was not financially reliant on his uncle before relocating to the UK in July 2012 as he had income from other sources and did not require his uncle’s assistance to meet his basic necessities. The matter was, however, referred to the Upper Tribunal and subsequently to the Court of Appeal. The First Tier Tribunal had acknowledged that Mr. Singh had received some financial assistance from his uncle for his studies, but it was classified as an “additional benefit“. They said that it failed to establish a dependent bond between Mr. Singh and his uncle.
Since part of the applicant’s needs and education were paid for by the EEA sponsor, the Upper Tribunal decided that a “global assessment of dependency” was necessary and rejected the applicant’s arguments. The Upper Tribunal also rejected the applicant’s claim that education is a need.
A “global approach” to dependency rests on a decision maker assessing whether the funds provided would need to meet all the dependents needs at once such as food, heating, housing, and the cost of their education. The inverse of this approach would be a “singular approach” which would assess whether the funds provided would be enough to meet only a single need of the dependent such as housing. The Court of Appeal determined that the global perspective was “not a constructive method of looking at the problem” and rejected the Upper Tribunal’s approach stating that it should not be used. Instead, they set out that the suitable approach had already been outlined in Rahman [2012] CJEU Case 83-11 and SM (India) v ECO (Mumbai) [2009] EWCA Civ 1426.
The other question before the court was whether education was to be deemed essential for the purposes of dependency. The Court of Appeal decided that education could be, but is not always, an essential living need. At the end of the day, they said that a fact-based analysis is required in every case.
Neither of the points raised however, resulted in the Appellants appeal failing. Instead, the appeal failed because Mr. Singh had not made the argument that education was an essential living need before the First Tier Tribunal. Given the facts and arguments before it, the Court of Appeal held that the First Tier Tribunal was correct to determine that the support given to Mr. Singh by his uncle was unrelated to the dependence issue.
In conclusion, this case restates the proper legal tests with regards to dependency under EU law. A global approach should not be used and financial assistance and support must be needed to cover a person’s essential living needs, not just provided generally. Following this, education could be said to be an essential living need in some cases, but this is to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
By Inci