WR (Student: Regular attendance; Maximum period) Jamaica
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 05 December 2005 |
| Date | 05 December 2005 |
| Court | Asylum and Immigration Tribunal |
Asylum and Immigration Tribunal
Mr C M G Ockelton, Deputy President, Miss E Arfon-Jones, Deputy President and Professor A Grubb, Senior Immigration Judge
Representation
Ms Ros Brown, Home Office Presenting Officer, for the Secretary of State;
Mr J Cobham, Andrews Solicitors, for the Claimant.
Cases referred to:
LS (Post-decision evidencedirectionsappealability) Gambia [2005] UKIAT 00085; [2005] Imm AR 310; [2006] INLR 61
Legislation judicially considered:
Immigration Rules HC 395 (as amended), Rules 57(ii)(b), 60(iv) and (vi)
Immigration Immigration Rules Rule 60 of the Immigration Rules student meaning of regular attendance calculation of total period spent on short courses
The Claimant, a citizen of Jamaica, was granted leave to enter the United Kingdom as a student on 6 January 2001. Her leave was extended until June 2003 to allow her to follow various short courses, and in July 2003 she applied for a further extension in order to undertake a course in computer studies. The application was refused under Rule 62 of the Immigration Rules HC 395 (as amended) with reference to Rule 60(iv), on the ground that she had failed to produce satisfactory evidence of regular attendance on the computer studies course, which had commenced in September 2003. On appeal, the Adjudicator accepted the Claimant's evidence that she had transferred to a different course. He allowed the appeal, finding that the Claimant, who had attended forty percent of the hours required for the computer studies course, satisfied the regular attendance requirement of Rule 60(iv) of the Immigration Rules. The Secretary of State was granted leave to appeal to the Immigration Appeal Tribunal, which took effect as an order for reconsideration by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal.
Held, substituting a fresh decision dismissing the Claimant's appeal against the decision by the Secretary of State:
(1) Rule 60(iv) of the Immigration Rules, a companion to the requirement of satisfactory progress in Rule 60(v) of the Immigration Rules, had to be read separately from Rule 57(ii)(b) of the Immigration Rules, which required applicants to study a minimum of fifteen hours per week and related to the design of the course independent of any student's actual attendance (paras 1115 and 20);
(2) regular in the context of Rule 60(iv) meant sufficiently often, habitual or frequent to meet the demands of the particular course; that was a question of fact in each case; there was no fixed percentage, but the greater the attendance the more likely that it would satisfy the Rule; as an attendance record of forty percent in this case could not possibly have amounted to regular attendance, the Adjudicator's finding that Rule 60(iv) was satisfied was perverse (paras 1921);
(3) following LS (Post decision evidencedirectionappealability) Gambia [2005] UKAIT 00085 the Claimant had to establish that she satisfied the requirements of the Immigration Rules at the date of hearing, allowing post-decision evidence and events to be taken into consideration; on the evidence before the Tribunal, including her regular attendance on the new course, the Claimant had been able to satisfy the requirements of paragraph 60(iv) (paras 25, 26 and 30);
(4) Rule 60(vi) was designed to restrict or limit a Claimant's leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom as a student to a total of four years; the rule was concerned only with an individual's immigration status as a student on short courses and not with the minutiae of calculating time actually spent studying; at the date of the hearing the Claimant had been in the United Kingdom with leave as a student for more than four years; as a consequence she failed to establish the requirement for extension of leave to remain as a student under Rule 60(vi) (paras 3638).
Determination and Reasons
Professor A Grubb, Senior Immigration Judge
[1] The Appellant arrived in the United Kingdom on 6 January 2001 and was granted leave to enter as a student until 31 January 2002. With appropriate extensions of leave, she undertook various short courses relating to beauty therapy and associated activities up to June 2003. On 28 July 2003, the Appellant applied for an extension of her leave to remain in the UK as a student in order to undertake a Diploma in Computer Studies at the School of Computing & Business Studies, Brixton Road London which was to commence in September 2003 and run until August 2004.
[2] On 3 March 2004, the Secretary of State refused her application under paragraph 62, with reference to paragraph 60(iv), of Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules, HC 395 of 1994 on the basis that she had failed to produce satisfactory evidence of regular attendance on the computer studies course which had begun in the interim. The Secretary of State relied upon a letter from the School of Computing & Business dated 27 February 2004 which indicted that, although the Appellant was registered on the computer course, she had not attended any part of it.
[3] The Appellant appealed against that refusal and, following a hearing, in a determination promulgated on 25 February 2005, an Adjudicator (Mr JP Griffin) allowed her appeal. The Adjudicator had before him evidence, which he accepted, that the Appellant had changed computer courses in...
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