The Supreme Court handed down judgment in the case of AM (Ethiopia) and others v Entry Clearance Officer [2009] UKSC 16 on 16th December 2009. The case concerned five conjoined appeals as to the interpretation of Part 8 of the Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules (HC 395) in relation to an application for leave to enter the UK for the purposes of family reunification.

The question for the court was whether under rules 281, 297 and 317 the requirement that the applicant be accommodated and maintained without recourse to public funds permits third party support or precludes maintenance provided by anyone other than the sponsor.

Allowing the appeals and applying the reasoning in Odelola v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] 1 WLR 126, the court emphasised that the rules were not to be strictly construed as in the case of statutory instruments or statutes, but were instead to be interpreted according to the natural and ordinary meaning of the words.

The court concluded that had the Secretary of State intended to rule out third party financial support in family reunification cases, this could have been achieved by using the same language as parts 6 and 7 of the rules, where the permissible sources of maintenance were clearly defined.