Court of Appeal hands down important judgment on Zambrano rights

The Court of Appeal (Lindblom, Irwin and Thirlwall LJJ) has handed down judgment in Patel, Shah, Bourouisa v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 2028. The case concerns the scope of the decision of the CJEU in Case C-133/15 Chavez-Vilchez [2017] 3 WLR 1326, [2017] 3 CMLR 35 and whether it extends the scope of the decision of the CJEU in Case C-34/09 Zambrano [2012] QB 265. The Court gave important guidance on the nature of a Zambrano right of residence, confirming that Chavez-Vilchez had not extended the scope of the Zambrano principle, that the domestic authorities remained good law and that a Zambrano right was not a back-door route to residence for non-EU nationals: [74]-[76]. A copy of the judgment can be found here. David Blundell represented the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the Patel case. He also drafted the United Kingdom's written observations in Chavez-Vilchez.