R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Rofath Ullah [QBD]
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 16 January 1987 |
| Date | 16 January 1987 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
Queen's Bench Division
Taylor J
A Riza for the applicants
D Pannick for the respondent
Cases referred to in the judgment:
R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte AkhtarWLRUNK [1975] 1 WLR 1717: [1975] 3 All ER 1087.
R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte PhansopkarELRUNK [1976] 1 QB 606: [1975] 3 All ER 497.
Smita Kiritkumar Brahmbhatt v Chief Immigration Officer, Heathrow, (unreported, CA, 6 December 1984).
R v Secretary of State for the Environment ex parte Nottinghamshire County CouncilELRUNK [1986] AC 240: [1986] 1 All ER 199.
Wives — admission — entry clearance — Commonwealth citizen married to a husband who was a British citizen — whether it is an infringement of the husband's rights under s. 1 of the 1971 Act, to require the wife to secure entry clearance before admission to the United Kingdom. Immigration Act 1971 ss. 1, 2, 3: British Nationality Act 1981, s. 39(2): HC 169 (as amended by HC 503), paras 4, 11, 41–42, 46–47.
The three applicants for judicial review were British citizens who had married Bangladeshi wives. The wives (in one case, at the date of entry a fiancée) had sought to enter the United Kingdom without entry clearance in Dhaka. They were refused entry.
It was accepted that none had a right of abode in the United Kingdom nor a right of entry. It was submitted however that the refusals of leave to enter infringed the rights of the husbands under s. 1 of the 1971 Act.
It was further submitted that the decisions by the Secretary of State were irrational. The delays in granting entry clearance in Dhaka were due to the unreasonably small number of staff allocated to the work. Moreover, it was unreasonble to expect the wives to return to Dhaka for interview: the interviews could quite easily be held in the United Kingdom.
Held:
1. On a true interpretation, s. 1 of the 1971 Act does not by implication give a husband who is a British citizen any right to have his wife join him forthwith in the United Kingdom, without her having secured entry clearance as required by the rules.
2. Neither the level of allocation of staff to the issuing of entry certificates in Dhaka nor the decision of the Secretary of State to require, on grounds of fairness, that the wives return to Dhaka for interview, were decisions that were irrational and amenable to judicial review on that ground.
Taylor J: These are three applications for judicial review. They have been heard together as they all raise the same points. In each the applicant is a British citizen married to a Bangladeshi wife. In each the wife was refused entry into the United Kingdom since she lacked an entry clearance certificate. The decision challenged in each case is the refusal of the Secretary of State to reverse the immigration officer's refusal.
The facts of the three cases can be stated quite shortly. The first applicant, Rofath Ullah, is 25 years old and was born in Bangladesh. He came to the United Kingdom in 1976 to join his father. He settled here and was registered as a British citizen in 1984. In May 1985 he went back to Bangladesh where he married Nurjahan Begum on 31 August 1985. She was a Bangladeshi citizen. He returned to the United Kingdom with his wife on 5 October 1985. They had made no application for an entry certificate in Dacca before coming to the United Kingdom because they knew that there would be a very considerable delay. On arrival the wife was refused leave to enter on the grounds that she had no entry certificate. The assistance of a Member of Parliament was enlisted to seek a reversal of that decision, but by a letter of 6 December 1985 the Minister maintained the refusal.
It is accepted in each of these three cases that the process of being interviewed with a view to obtaining an entry certificate in Dacca at the present time involved something of the order of 13 months delay.
The second applicant is Soifur Rahman Ali. He is 27 years old. He is a British citizen born in the United Kingdom in Coventry of Bangladeshi parents. He has lived here most of his life, but on 13 March 1986 he married Dina Begum in Bangladesh. On 29 March 1986 he and his wife visited the British High Commission in Dacca and applied for an entry certificate for the wife to join her husband in England. There are letters from the High Commission indicating that no firm date could be given for an interview. The applicant claims that he had to return to the United Kingdom for business reasons and he was unwilling to endure any lengthy delay before his wife could join him. Accordingly he brought her back with him on 5 April 1986. She was given temporary admission whilst her case was considered, but on 4 May she was refused entry again on the ground that she had no entry clearance certificate. Once again the applicant sought help from a Member of Parliament. He also suggested by letter to the authorities that any interview that was necessary in respect of his wife's application for entry clearance might take place in the United Kingdom rather than in Dacca, but again the Minister turned down the application by letter of 18 June 1986.
The third applicant is Foriz Uddin. He is 20 years old and was born in Bangladesh. He became a registered British citizen on 1 June 1985. He married Ashma Begum, a Bangladeshi citizen, in...
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Rofath Ullah v Secretary of state for the home department
...Officer, Heathrow (unreported, CA 6 December 1984). R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Rofath Ullah and ors [1987] Imm AR 201. Wife admission entry clearance Commonwealth citizen married to British citizen settled in the United Kingdom whether the husband's rights under......