London, May 23 (Reuters): A law designed to combat “sham marriages” by forcing immigrants to seek government permission if they want to marry is discriminatory and breaches their human rights, the appeal court ruled today.

Three top judges backed a high court ruling that the powers, introduced by former home secretary David Blunkett in the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004, went beyond their intended aim and were unlawful.

The scheme — believed to be the first time any British government has restricted the right of a consenting adult to marry — meant a person subject to immigration control had to apply to the home secretary for approval to marry.

However the law, designed to stop bogus marriages being used to get round immigration restrictions, did not apply to those who married according to the rites of the Church of England.

In the high court ruling, Justice Silber declared that the legislation was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

That decision was backed by the Court of Appeal which rejected an appeal by the current home secretary, John Reid. “I consider that the judge was right to hold that the scheme fails the test of proportionality,” said Lord Justice Buxton.

Amit Sachdev, lawyer for two of the couples involved in the case, said the decision showed “the government’s ongoing and abject failure to respect the human rights of immigrants”.

“This Act was a knee-jerk reaction based on speculation and conjecture rather than evidence,” he said. “The Court of Appeal went further than Mr Justice Silber last year and found the whole scheme to be completely illegal and not only discriminatory but a breach of a person’s fundamental human right to marry, whatever that person’s immigration status in the United Kingdom.”