Upper Tribunal (Immigration and asylum chamber), 2024-12-23, JR-2022-LON-001034

JR-2022-LON-001034

In the Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
Judicial Review


In the matter of an application for Judicial Review


The King on the application of
HELEN IBESHILE IJOYAH
(no anonymity order is in force)



Applicant




versus





Secretary of State for the Home Department



Respondent







ORDER



BEFORE Upper Tribunal Judge Perkins

HAVING considered all documents lodged, neither party having attended the handing down of the judgment,

IT IS ORDERED THAT:

(1) The application for judicial review is refused for the reasons in the attached judgment. I am particularly grateful to Mr David Jones of Counsel for his suggested corrections after seeing an embargoed draft of my reasons. I have adopted them all.
(2) I decline Mr Jones’s written request for an anonymity order. This is not a protection case and I see no risk of harm to the parties or family members arising from their details being in the public domain. Anonymity should not be granted without good reasons and I find none here.
(3) The Applicant shall pay the Respondent’s reasonable costs on the standard basis, to be assessed, if not agreed.
(4) The Applicant has the benefit of cost protection under section 26 Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. Any request by the Defendant for costs to be paid by the First Claimant, is to be determined in accordance with Regulations 10 and 16 of the Civil Legal Aid (Costs) Regulations 2013.
(5) There be a detailed assessment of the Applicant’s publicly funded costs.
(6) Permission to appeal is refused because I see no arguable error of law in my decision. It may be that the Court of Appeal will think that there is a point of general importance here but, respectfully, that is matter for that Court.

Signed: Jonathan Perkins

Upper Tribunal Judge Perkins
Dated: 20 December 2024


The date on which this order was sent is given below


For completion by the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber

Sent / Handed to the applicant, respondent and any interested party / the applicant's, respondent’s and any interested party’s solicitors on (date): 23/12/2024

Solicitors:
Ref No.
Home Office Ref:


Notification of appeal rights

A decision by the Upper Tribunal on an application for judicial review is a decision that disposes of proceedings.

A party may appeal against such a decision to the Court of Appeal on a point of law only. Any party who wishes to appeal should apply to the Upper Tribunal for permission, at the hearing at which the decision is given. If no application is made, the Tribunal must nonetheless consider at the hearing whether to give or refuse permission to appeal (rule 44(4B) of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008).

If the Tribunal refuses permission, either in response to an application or by virtue of rule 44(4B), then the party wishing to appeal can apply for permission from the Court of Appeal itself. This must be done by filing an appellant’s notice with the Civil Appeals Office of the Court of Appeal within 28 days of the date the Tribunal’s decision on permission to appeal was sent (Civil Procedure Rules Practice Direction 52D 3.3).


Case No: JR-2022-LON-001034
IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
(IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER)
Field House,
Breams Buildings
London, EC4A 1WR

23 December 2024
Before:

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE PERKINS

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Between:

THE KING
on the application of
HELEN IBESHILE IJOYAH
Applicant
- and -

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Mr D Jones
and
Mr S Galliver-Andrews
(Counsel, instructed by Bhatt Murphy Solicitors), for the Applicant

Mr J Anderson
(Counsel, instructed by the Government Legal Department) for the Respondent

Hearing date: 21 June 2023

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DECISION AND REASONS

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Judge Perkins:

1. I confirm that I have read the documents relied upon, including all of the pleadings and interlocutory orders. I have only considered in my written judgment the things that I have found particularly helpful.
2. I indicate my findings at different parts of my judgment. For the avoidance of doubt, I have made my findings after a wide and (I hope) full consideration of the material and if it appears that I have made any finding before considering all of the papers and submissions that appearance is wrong.
3. I realise that the decision invites criticism for repetition but I have found no other way to show that I have engaged with the arguments made in the pleadings, submissions, skeleton arguments and, to some extent, correspondence.
4. Although it has been necessary to consider a substantial bundle the core challenge is expressed succinctly in the Statement of Facts and Grounds for Judicial Review and in the Detailed Grounds of Defence.
5. According to the Applicant, her challenge is to the Respondent’s decision on 10 April 2022 to rescind her indefinite leave to remain and replace it with 30 months of limited leave to remain.
6. The Detailed Grounds of Defence express the challenge differently. They assert:
“The substantive issue in the claim is whether the Applicant has indefinite leave to remain. The Respondent submits that she does not, because her indefinite leave to remain was revoked by a deportation order signed on 21 November 2014 and served on 3 December 2014.”
7. This difference of expression illuminates the nature of the dispute between the parties.
8. The decision of 10 April 2022 was explained in a letter dated 20 April 2022 and I set out below the substantial parts of that letter:
Thank you for your email of 14 April 2022 in which you[r?] client has raised a query with regard to the leave to be issued.
On 26 July 2013 your client was convicted at Snaresbrook Crown Court of committing an act/series of acts with intent to pervert the course of public justice. On 30 August 2013 she was sentenced to 27 months' imprisonment. A decision was made on 21 November 2014 to deport your client and refuse her human rights claim. The decision was certified under section 94B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, giving an out of country appeal right, and the Deportation Order under the UK Borders Act 2007 was signed on the same date.
Your client's Indefinite Leave to Remain was invalidated by the Deportation Order signed on 21 November 2014. As your client's refusal of her human rights claim was certified under section 94B of the 2002 Act, she did not have a pending appeal when the deportation order was signed and her Indefinite Leave to Remain was therefore invalidated.
Following a judicial review challenge, the decision of 21 November 2014 was withdrawn on 20 June 2015 with a new decision to be made. The deportation order, however, remained in place. Further enquiries were subsequently made into your client's circumstances.
Since then, your client has received two further convictions, both in 2018: distributing indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children; and failing to comply with notification requirements, breach of a sexual harm prevention order and commission of a further offence during the operational period of a suspended sentence order. Further submissions have also been made on your client's behalf, which included various evidence, including an independent social work report on the impact of your client's deportation on her children. In the light of all the further submissions, it has been decided not to pursue deportation against your client and the deportation order was revoked on 10 April 2022. However, the revocation of a deportation order does not revive any previous leave invalidated when the deportation order was made. Your client cannot be left ·without any leave, and she will therefore be granted 30 months' leave under Part 13 (paragraph 399B) of the Immigration Rules.”
9. It is the Applicant’s case that that decision is ultra vires and contrary to the Respondent’s public policy.
10. The grounds then set out the remedies that the Applicant seeks. Essentially she requires an order quashing the Respondent’s decision on 10 April 2022 to revoke her indefinite leave to remain and replace it with limited leave to remain and then a declaration that any “historic” (I suggest pre-existing might be a better description) deportation order was either rescinded by a consent order signed in June 2015 or had implicitly been withdrawn and fallen away because of the conduct of the Respondent, and particularly a letter of 6 September 2016 confirming that she had retained her indefinite leave to remain which in turn led to her son being a British national.
11. Before considering the Summary Grounds or Detailed Grounds of Defence I outline some of the salient facts.
12. There is much in the material before me which I find does not need specific comment. In particular there is evidence about the Applicant’s strained relationship with her children and her own challenging childhood experiences. These things might support a further application for leave and failure to disclose them could expose the Applicant to criticism for not discharging her duty of candour. I am aware of the evidence but I have not found it important to the decision that I have to make.
13. At the start of the hearing before me I declined to admit further evidence and I said:
I refuse the application to introduce evidence in a statement dated 30 May 2023.
This was drawn after disclosure and was, I accept, intended to help in a case where there are important issues touching on the rights of a child.
However, I do not consider it relevant to the issues before me except to the extent that it consolidates strands of evidence that are in the papers. That might be convenient but it is not necessary and, as far as I can see, the statement does not purport to identify the evidence that is already in the papers.
I find that admitting the statement would risk drawing attention away from the pleaded case. If it is necessary to consider evidence that was before the...