Mansoor Fazli

Mansoor practises in immigration, family, employment, civil litigation, education, professional discipline and regulatory law. He is a specialist public law & human rights Barrister, with a particular focus on all areas of immigration, nationality and asylum law.
He regularly appears in both the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal on a range of immigration and asylum law matters. He regularly conducts oral and written advocacy in judicial review matters both before the Upper Tribunal and the Administrative Court, including in cases concerning deportation and urgent injunctions. Mansoor has appeared in Family Courts and in the County Courts in civil matters. He is keen to grow his practise in these areas.
He is known for his creative and imaginative style of written and oral advocacy, which is tempered only by his passion for social justice, the rule of law and human rights. Mansoor is often able to secure permissions in dismissed asylum and human rights appeals because of his distinct perspective and forensic attention to factual as well as legal issues. Mansoor was privileged to undertake pupillage under the supervision of the highly regarded senior retired Upper Tribunal Judge McKee, which has equipped him with exceptional training, experience and knowledge within the immigration and public law jurisdictions.
Prior to practising as a Barrister, Mansoor acquired several years of experience, which included the following: Mansoor worked as an intern at the House of Lords and subsequently worked for Forward Thinking, a conflict resolution NGO, which works ‘‘to promote a more inclusive peace process in the Middle East’’ and to ‘‘facilitate political dialogues in, and between, the Arab/Muslim and Western worlds’’ through mediation. In addition, Mansoor spent three years as a paralegal at various law firms where he assisted within immigration, family and civil litigation matters.
Notable Work/Cases
First-tier Tribunal
- M R v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Appeal no: IA/21205/2015) – Mr Fazli successfully represented the Appellant in his full substantive appeal hearing where Judge Baldwin allowed the appeal on human rights grounds, specifically on the basis of the Appellant’s family life with his daughter.
Upper Tribunal
- The Queen (on the application of) VAS v The Secretary of State for the Home Department (JR/6270/2018) – Permission to bring judicial review was granted on papers after Mr Fazli drafted grounds against the Respondent’s decision to refuse to treat the Applicant’s further submissions as a fresh asylum, humanitarian protection and human rights claim under paragraph 353 of the Immigration Rules (HC395 as amended). The matter was listed for a substantive hearing but the Applicant accepted the Respondent’s consent order, which proposed that the latter will pay the Applicant’s reasonable costs and will reconsider her decision.
- The Queen (on the application of) ES v The Secretary of State for the Home Department (JR/3595/2019) – Upper Tribunal Judge Norton-Taylor granted permission to bring judicial review in circumstances where the Applicant had left the UK on two occasions to claim asylum in another EU country whilst his settlement application was pending but Mr Fazli persuaded the learned Judge at the permission stage that his departure wasn’t voluntary and, as such, the continuation of his leave under S.3C of the Immigration Act 1971 should not be effected. These proceedings were compromised via a consent order after the Respondent agreed to pay the Applicant’s costs and reconsider her decision.
- The Queen (on the application of) ZK v The Secretary of State for the Home Department (JR/5637/2019) – Mr Fazli challenged the arguably excessive delay on part of the Respondent in that she failed to make a decision on the Applicant’s asylum claim which had been pending for over a two year period. Shortly after proceedings were lodged, the Respondent made a decision on the claim and granted the Applicant refugee status.
- The Queen (on the application of) AM v The Secretary of State for the Home Department (JR/1647/2018) – The Respondent withdrew her decision to refuse to treat the Applicant’s further submissions as fresh claim before the Upper Tribunal made a decision on the permission application.
- Umid [K] v The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Appeal no: PA/01673/2019) – Mr Fazli persuaded Upper Tribunal Judge Jordan that the Applicant’s S.3C leave continued even after he had made an out of time application to extend his discretionary leave to remain. The Applicant was granted settlement and this was an exceptional result. The details of the case can be accessed at: https://tribunalsdecisions.service.gov.uk/utiac/pa-01673-2019
- MM v The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Appeal no: PA/08184/2019) – Successfully challenged the First-tier Tribunal’s erroneous findings on internal relocation. https://tribunalsdecisions.service.gov.uk/utiac/pa-08184-2019
- IZ v The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Appeal no: PA/13955/2018) – Mr Fazli appeared for this unaccompanied child refugee Appellant, where the Judge set aside the determination and remitted the case back to the FTT. https://tribunalsdecisions.service.gov.uk/utiac/pa-13955-2018.
- Muhammad [u] v The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Appeal no: PA/05651/2018) – Having drafted the grounds of appeal, Mr Fazli Persuaded the Upper Tribunal that the FTT’s decision contained material errors of law. The decision is accessible at: https://tribunalsdecisions.service.gov.uk/utiac/pa-05651-2018
High Court
- The Queen (on the application of) E R v Brunel University London (CO/4972/2019) – Mr Fazli drafted grounds for an application for permission to judicial review the decision of the University which refused to accept the Claimant’s academic appeal as valid and, as a consequence, refused to accept that the Claimant’s extenuating circumstances were sufficiently compelling such that his second attempt at his statistics assessment should be discounted, in order to enable him to be reinstated to his academic degree course. As a foreign student, following his withdrawal from the course, the Claimant’s removal to his country was imminent. Whilst in his practising period of pupillage, Mr Fazli appeared before the High Court in a renewed oral application for permission and having heard his submissions, the Judge commented that the ‘Claimant’s submissions were forceful’.
- The Queen (on the application of) MS v The Upper Tribunal (CO/2668/2019) – Mr Fazli drafted (Cart) judicial review grounds arguing, among others, that the Upper Tribunal had adopted the wrong approach to witness evidence as per R (on the application of SS) v SSHD (“self-serving” statements) [2017] UKUT 164 (IAC) and that the Upper Tribunal has reached an unreasonable conclusion on the evidence and improperly applied the principle of the Devaseelan.
- The Queen (on the application of) AK v The Upper Tribunal (CO/3346/2019) – Mr Fazli drafted grounds for permission to (Cart) judicial review the decision of the Upper Tribunal Defendant arguing that: (1) The learned Judge, whilst examining the Claimant’s evidence, took the wrong approach to the assessment of an error by the Claimant’s solicitors within the Claimant’s witness statement in circumstances where the Judge was informed that there might have been an error by the solicitors and this erroneous approach arguably caused the Judge to make seriously adverse findings of fact which substantially contributed to the dismissal of the appeal; (2) that the Upper Tribunal’s failure to admit the evidence contained within the two tweets presented on the day of the hearing was contrary to the interests of justice and (3) that the Upper Tribunal took an erroneous approach to expert evidence and failed to adequately and rationally engage with the findings of the expert.
- The Queen (on the application of) DS v The Upper Tribunal (CO/1432/2019) – Mr Fazli drafted (Cart) judicial review grounds in a dismissed asylum appeal arguing that the Defendant’s assessment of the First-tier Tribunal’s finding on relocation was contrary to the objective evidence on the ground. The ground was characterised in the following terms: ‘‘Erroneous finding on the Claimant’s relocation to another part of Afghanistan other than his home area – it is submitted that FTT Judge Kelly failed to recognise that ‘local Taliban’ in Nangarhar province are part and parcel of the Taliban’s organisation as a whole, such that if the Claimant is at risk at his local/home area then he will, as a consequence, be likely to be at risk elsewhere in Afghanistan.’’
- The Queen (on the application of) GK v The Upper Tribunal (CO/3429/2019) – This case concerned a dismissed protection appeal and following the dismissal of the application for permission to appeal by the Upper Tribunal, Mr Fazli drafted (Cart) judicial review grounds contending that: ‘‘…FTTJ Chapman took an erroneous or at the very least a substantially disproportionate approach in his assessment of the Taliban threat letters and the witness evidence of Mr N who obtained these threat letters. The failure of N’s attendance at the hearing was treated as determinative of the Claimant’s evidence as regards to his protection appeal.’’
- The Queen (on the application of) RY v The Upper Tribunal (CO/574/2019) – Mr Fazli drafted (Cart) judicial review grounds arguing that ‘‘…the FtTJ failed to explicitly address the central question of whether or not the purpose of the residence in the EEA State was as a means of circumventing UK immigration laws. The Judge fails to recognise and deal with “the familiar tension” between O & B v The Netherlands [2014] C-456/12 and Regulation 9, in that the judgment of the CJEU in the former lays down far less stringent requirements than the latter.’’
- The Queen (on the application of) IR v The Upper Tribunal (CO/5030/2018) – Mr Fazli drafted detailed (Cart) judicial review grounds to the High Court against the decision of the Upper Tribunal refusing permission to appeal against the decision of the First Tier Tribunal, which had dismissed the Appellant’s asylum and humanitarian protection appeal based on his fear of persecution from the Taliban and warlords in Afghanistan. The grounds contended, among others, that the fact-finding Tribunal had misinterpreted and misconstrued material evidence which had contributed to the adverse credibility findings and the ultimate dismissal of the appeal. The Defendant, it was argued, had therefore failed to properly apply the law in these respects by its failure to afford this case ‘‘anxious scrutiny’’.
Education
- Middlesex University, LLB Bachelors of Law (Hons) – First Class (2014)
- City University London, BPTC
- City University London LLM – (2018)
- University College London, MA in Legal and Political Theory – (2019)
Qualifications & Professional Memberships
- The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple
- Public Access qualified
Scholarships and Awards
- Harmsworth scholarship from Middle Temple (2014)
- Hardship Fund award from Middle Temple, whilst in Pupillage (2020)
- Local Authority Bursary (2014)
- Gold Medal for promoting democracy, UK Youth Parliament elections (2011)
- ‘Outstanding Role Model’ certificate from the Head teacher
Languages
- Pashto
- Dari/Persian