R Liaquat Ali v The Secretary of State for the Home Department
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE HON MR JUSTICE BURNETT,The Hon Mr Justice Burnett |
| Judgment Date | 27 November 2012 |
| Neutral Citation | [2012] EWHC 3379 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/3566/2011 |
| Date | 27 November 2012 |
[2012] EWHC 3379 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
The Hon Mr Justice Burnett
Case No: CO/3566/2011
Mr J Rene and Mr M Mukulu (instructed by Just and Brown Solicitors) for the Claimant
Miss Lisa Busch (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the Defendant
Hearing date: 8 November 2012
Introduction
The Secretary of State has refused to issue a new passport to the claimant upon the expiry of a passport issued to him in 1999. The reason why a new passport has been denied to the claimant is that he has failed to satisfy the Secretary of State that he is Liaquat Ali. That conclusion carries with it the implication, which the Secretary of State accepts, that the passport issued in 1999 was issued in error. The Secretary of State is satisfied that there are two people who claim to be Liaquat Ali, and who have asserted British nationality by right of descent from Mohamed Moyna Miah. He was born in what was then British India on 10 May 1932 and was registered as a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies on 11 April 1963. The claimant submits:
i) that it was irrational for the Secretary of State to refuse to accept that he is the son of Mohamed Moyna Miah;
ii) that the conclusion reached by the Secretary of State suggests that the claimant is a fraud and so the Secretary of State should be required to prove that suggestion to a high degree of probability.
iii) that it was unlawful to require the claimant to produce evidence of his life in the United Kingdom before 1999;
iv) that the Secretary of State did not provide all the evidence to the claimant before making and then affirming her decision, with the result that there has been procedural unfairness which vitiates the decision.
The Facts
The only common ground between the claimant and the Secretary of State is that Mohamed Moyna Miah was born on 10 May 1932 in Sylhet and that his wife was Amrunassa Banu born five years later also in Sylhet. Sylhet is now in Bangladesh.
On 13 March 1980 a British passport was issued to Liaquat Ali. The only extant official record of that passport is an index card which appears to give the date of birth as 20 November 1967. The papers before the court contain a poor photocopy (not the original) in which the date is not clear. In March 1999 an application for a renewed passport in anticipation of travel on 4 April that year was made. The 1980 passport, which had by then expired, was forwarded with the application. The applicant in 1999 was the claimant in these proceedings. The application was supported by a Dr Bashkar Sitaram Swadi, who gave a London address and asserted that he was the applicant's general practitioner. The date of birth given for Liaquat Ali was 28 November 1967. The difference, if indeed there was one, with the date of birth in the expired passport was not noticed.
A new 10 year passport was issued. It was the normal practice of the Home Office to return the expired passport to its holder along with the new one. The claimant says that when he received the passport the old one was not returned. A national insurance number for Liaquat Ali, date of birth 28 November 1967, was set up on 21 July 2009.
On 28 November 2008, in advance of the expiry of the 1999 passport, the claimant applied to renew it. He again gave his date of birth as 28 November 1967. On this occasion the apparent discrepancy over dates of birth was picked up. The paperwork was sent to the Newport Fraud and Investigation Team. Inquiries were made of the DVLA who indicated that driving licences had been issued to two separate people called Liaquat Ali, one with each of the two dates of birth. The photographs of the two were different. The Metropolitan Police provided a photograph of a Liaquat Ali date of birth 20 November 1967. That was not a photograph of the claimant but was the same as the man to whom DVLA had issued a licence with that date of birth. As the summary grounds of defence put it 'these checks suggested that the applicant was an imposter'. The claimant was invited for an interview. On 31 March 2009 he was interviewed. He said he had arrived in the United Kingdom in 1979 to join his father, whose name and date of birth he gave. He said that his father died in 1994 in Bangladesh and that his mother died in Bangladesh in 1997. The claimant said he had held three British passports. The first was issued in 1979 (he was unsure where this passport was); the second was issued in 1989 (it was retained by the Home Office when he applied for the third); the third was issued in 1999. His date of birth was 28 November 1967. He came from Bangladesh when he was 11 and went to Robert Montefiore Secondary School in the East End for about three years. The claimant said that he was taken out of school when he was 15 or 16 to work in a factory. He had no siblings and no relations in Bangladesh. He could get no documents relating to his parents but had married in 2004. He provided details. He was interviewed again on 15 April and produced documents relating to his wife and children. He was arrested but released.
By letter dated 20 August 2009 the application was refused, in these terms:
"I am writing to advise you that the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) has decided not to proceed with your application for passport facilities as, having reviewed the application, IPS is not satisfied with your claimed identity.
This letter sets out the reasons for this decision.
In 1999 you submitted an application to replace a previous British Passport number 533774C issued in 1980. As a result of this application a passport number 035245669 was issued in your respect.
A subsequent check of identity and Passport Service records established that the [the 1980] passport number 533774C was originally issued in the identity of Liaquat ALI born 20 November 1967. If this had been identified at the time you applied in 1999 then passport 035245669 would not have been issued.
As a result of this information, when you submitted [the 1999] passport number 035245669 for replacement, you were arrested at the London Passport Office on 15 April 2009.
Although enquiries made by IPS with the Metropolitan Police have established that they decided not to charge you, it remains that [the 1980] passport 533774 which you have previously submitted as your own, was in fact issued to somebody else.
Accordingly your application for the grant of further British Passport facilities is refused."
One 20 January 2010 PC Adam Ridley wrote a letter in response to a telephone call from a Miss Hossain of the claimant's then solicitors which set out the 'rationale' for taking no further action against the claimant. Within that letter, PC Ridley indicates that the claimant had been interviewed and could not understand why the 1980 passport gave his date of birth as 20 November 1967. The claimant attended the police station and provided a copy of the certificate of naturalisation of Mohamed Moyna Miah, together with his own marriage certificate and the birth certificates of his wife and two children. The officer observed:
"All of these items would suggest that the suspect would have lawful UK citizenship and so would not make any gain from the alleged false application.
The passport office is unable to provide any evidence of the original blue passport or the application details. The only evidence that the original was issued in the earlier date of birth was from a faded card entry which is in itself is (sic) difficult to read.
At this time there is insufficient evidence to proceed on further lines of enquiry. The suspect clearly settled in a family life and would have the right to stay in the UK from his wife and children.
Enquiries with the voters and DVLA the residents of similar name have had a negative result in tracing the correct passport holder if indeed the suspect is false.
I hope this is sufficient to assist your client."
A good deal is made of this letter by Mr Rene on behalf of the claimant at the core of whose submissions is the contention that the Secretary of State was effectively obliged to issue the passport because of the conclusions expressed by PC Ridley. With respect to the officer, he was not right to suggest that the documents produced relating to the claimant's wife and children could provide any independent evidence of his own British nationality. The short point is that if Mohamed Moyna Miah was his father, then he is entitled to British nationality. The observation that the claimant would have not made any gain from the alleged false application is also, with respect, wrong. If a false application was made by the claimant that happened in 1999, long before he met his current wife. In any event the possession of a British passport confers many benefits. Whilst the observation that, even if he is not a British national, the claimant would have a right to stay in this country by virtue of his marriage to a British national and his being the father of two British children may be correct, that is different from securing the advantages of British nationality. It appears that the officer had only a poor copy of the index card. Given the information that the Secretary of State had been given by the DVLA, including photographs, it is anomalous that PC Ridley obtained a "negative result" when he enquired of them.
A letter was written by the claimant's then...
To continue reading
Request your trial
- The Queen (on the application of Mobolanle Oyinkansola Olayeni) v Secretary of State for Home Department
-
R Ladimeji v Secretary of State for the Home Department
...to a new passport on that basis…" 6 The other case that I was referred to is Ali v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWHC 3379 (Admin) at paragraph 17 where Burnett J, as he then was, summarised the law governing the issue of a British passport: i. "A decision by the Secreta......
-
Xh and Another v Secretary of State for the Home Department
...his submissions are inconsistent with the decision of Burnett J in R (Ali) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWHC 3379 (Admin). In that case Burnett J stated at [23]: "The task of the court is the familiar one of evaluating whether the decision was one open to the Secret......
-
R Samuel Nathaniel Easy v Secretary of State for the Home Department
...HH Judge David Cooke, sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court, at [24]; R (Ali) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWHC 3379 (Admin), per Burnett J., at 36 I cannot accept the Claimant's primary submission that he still has a valid passport which cannot be withdrawn an......