PRIME Minister Theresa May’s cruel summer of defeat in the Scottish and UK courts has led to a senior SNP politician calling the Home Office she led “shambolic, cruel and callous”.

The news revealed today by The National that in just six weeks, six decisions taken by the Home Office when May was Home Secretary have been overturned by the courts shows – in the words of a Labour shadow minister – that the Prime Minister also “has a dubious history of taking decisions that fail when subjected to the scrutiny of the courts”.

The National reveals today that in the latest case to be made public, two Pakistani fathers of British children will have the right to appeal against May’s decision to keep them out of the UK.

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Lord Menzies in Scotland’s highest civil court, the Court of Session, ruled on a decision by Home Office staff in Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2013 to refuse brothers Muhammad Sibtain and Muhammad Hasnain leave to join their families in the UK.

The two brothers had married two sisters who were both UK citizens, and both couples had children who were British citizens resident in the UK. Neither man could meet May’s then rule that they had to be earning £18,600 gross income, but a judge at the immigration First-tier Tribunal ruled that refusing the two fathers entry into the UK would be a breach of the British children’s human rights.

In the name of Theresa May, the Home Office appealed against that decision and won the case at the immigration Upper Tribunal.

Subsequently, other judgments at the UK Supreme Court concluded that Home Office rules “fail unlawfully to give effect to the duty of the Secretary of State in respect of the welfare of children,” in the words of Lord Menzies.

Allowing the two fathers to appeal in the face of continuing opposition from the Home Office, Lord Menzies added: “I have reached the view that this application does raise an important point of principle or practice that has not been conclusively resolved in the recent case law to which I have referred. “I cannot exclude the possibility that the Upper Tribunal would have reached a different conclusion if it had had the benefit of the views of the United Kingdom Supreme Court before it and that it may have erred in law as a result.” The National has reported on other cases this summer where decisions taken while May was Home Secretary have been countermanded by the Courts.

The UK Supreme Court ruled in favour of Scottish residents Violeta Sadovska and Saleem Malik in an important human rights case.

May had wanted to deport them both, saying theirs was a marriage of convenience, which the couple strongly denied, and the courts said it was for the Home Office to prove that the marriage was a sham, not for the couple to prove it was not.

On the same day, May’s government also lost the employment tribunal fees case which means the taxpayer will have to foot the bill for £32 million of refunds to those who had paid the fees that are now unlawful.

The costs for the lost immigration cases are said by one legal expert to be “a high six or even seven figure sum”.

In the case of an anonymous gay Pakistani man who faced life imprisonment or worse if he was deported home as May had ruled, senior Scottish judge Lord Malcolm wrote: “We have decided to grant the appeal. We can only hope that the long and unfortunate history ... is not typical of immigration proceedings in the tribunal system.”

Other May losses in the Court of Session involved a Chinese woman with two children who faced being deported to a country that would only allow her to have one, and only last week May’s decision to deport Vishal Suri to India was overturned and he will now have the right to appeal on human rights grounds that he can stay in the UK with his British fiancée. Not all her decisions have been overruled by the courts. Sukhdeep Singh of India is now facing deportation home despite having married a British national who cannot move there. An anonymous Nigerian citizen is also to be deported despite having married a UK citizen.

Speaking after The National revealed the latest case that overturned a May decision, SNP MP Stuart McDonald, the party’s immigration and asylum spokesperson at Westminster, said: “This is one of a long list of cases which show just how shambolic, cruel and callous Theresa May’s Home Office was.

“And it is deeply concerning that somebody who must have authorised these cases and was prepared to ignore basic human rights and target migrants and vulnerable people, is now Prime Minister. Equally galling is the huge cost to the taxpayer at a time of austerity.

“Tory immigration and asylum policies are not fit for purpose. They have chosen to pursue a xenophobic Ukip-inspired agenda ahead of the safety of people who have fled war, conflict, discrimination and extreme hardship.

“Cases like this show why it is imperative that Scotland gains full powers over immigration and asylum – in order to protect people from the worst excesses of Theresa May’s cruel government.”

Labour’s Paul Sweeney MP, shadow Scotland Office minister said: “The myth of Theresa May being a strong and stable prime minister unravelled during the General Election, but the warning signs were there from her time at the Home Office.

“Whether it was her failure on Article 50 or other cases such as the recent victory for UNISON on employment tribunal fees we have seen all too frequently that she has a dubious history of taking decisions that fail when subjected to the scrutiny of the courts.”