The High Court judge Mr Justice Newman ruled that the government acted unfairly in imposing stricter rules retrospectively to migrant workers in the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme (HSMP) scheme who were already in the UK, and gave go-ahead for a judicial review. The new rules were announced in November 2006 and said to affect up to 44,000 migrants by the opponents.

The Financial Times reports:

Mr Justice Newman gave the go-ahead for a judicial review into the government’s imposition of tough new regulations, which opponents claimed would force up to 44,000 migrants, who came to work under the old rules, to leave the country. The changes announced in November 2006 introduced stricter education, age and earnings requirements for highly skilled migrants including those already working here and expecting to remain.

The HSMP Forum, a non-profit organisation established to help highly skilled migrants, called for the judicial review into the retrospective aspect of the rule changes, which it said were “unfair and discriminatory”.

Read the full report.