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England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> KB (Jamaica) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 1385 (28 October 2020) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2020/1385.html Cite as: [2020] EWCA Civ 1385 |
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ON APPEAL FROM THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
(IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER)
UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE FINCH
HU/05736/2017
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
LADY JUSTICE ASPLIN
and
LORD JUSTICE POPPLEWELL
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KB (JAMAICA) |
Appellant |
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- and – |
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SECRETARY OF STATE |
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FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT |
Respondent |
____________________
Zane Malik (instructed by Government Legal Department) for the Respondent
Hearing dates : 21 October 2020
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Crown Copyright ©
Lord Justice Popplewell :
Introduction
Factual and procedural narrative
The law
"(1) The deportation of foreign criminals is in the public interest.
(2) The more serious the offence committed by a foreign criminal, the greater is the public interest in deportation of the criminal.
(3) In the case of a foreign criminal ("C") who has not been sentenced to a period of imprisonment of four years or more, the public interest requires C's deportation unless Exception 1 or Exception 2 applies.
…
(5) Exception 2 applies where C has a genuine and subsisting relationship with a qualifying partner, or a genuine and subsisting parental relationship with a qualifying child, and the effect of C's deportation on the partner or child would be unduly harsh.
(6) In the case of a foreign criminal who has been sentenced to a period of imprisonment of at least four years, the public interest requires deportation unless there are very compelling circumstances, over and above those described in Exceptions 1 and 2."
(a) the effect of deportation on the children would be unduly harsh: s. 117C(5); or
(b) if the effect would not be unduly harsh, but there are nevertheless very compelling circumstances: s. 117C(6).
(1) The unduly harsh test is to be determined without reference to the criminality of the parent or the severity of the relevant offences: KO (Nigeria) para 23, reversing in this respect the Court of Appeal's decision in that case, reported under the name MM (Uganda) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWCA Civ 617, in which at paragraph 26 Laws LJ expressed this court's conclusion that the unduly harsh test required regard to be had to all the circumstances including the criminal's immigration and criminal history.
(2) "Unduly" harsh requires a degree of harshness which goes beyond what would necessarily be involved for any child faced with deportation of a parent: KO (Nigeria) para 23.
(3) That is an elevated test, which carries a much stronger emphasis that mere undesirability or what is merely uncomfortable, inconvenient, or difficult; but the threshold is not as high as the very compelling circumstances test in s. 117C(6): KO (Nigeria) para 27; HA (Iraq) paras 51-52.
(4) The formulation in para 23 of KO (Nigeria) does not posit some objectively measurable standard of harshness which is acceptable, and it is potentially misleading and dangerous to seek to identify some "ordinary" level of harshness as an acceptable level by reference to what may be commonly encountered circumstances: there is no reason in principle why cases of undue hardship may not occur quite commonly; and how a child will be affected by a parent's deportation will depend upon an almost infinitely variable range of circumstances; it is not possible to identify a base level of "ordinariness": HA (Iraq) paras 44, 50-53, 56 and 157, AA (Nigeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 1296 at para 12.
(5) Beyond this guidance, further exposition of the phrase will rarely be helpful; and tribunals will not err in law if they carefully evaluate the effect of the parent's deportation on the particular child and then decide whether the effect is not merely harsh but unduly harsh applying the above guidance: HA (Iraq) at paras 53 and 57. There is no substitute for the statutory wording (ibid at para 157).
The issues on this appeal
"19. I start with two preliminary observations about the nature of, and approach to, an appeal to the UT. First, the right of appeal to the UT is "on any point of law arising from a decision made by the [FTT] other than an excluded decision": Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 ("the 2007 Act"), section 11(1) and (2) . If the UT finds an error of law, the UT may set aside the decision of the FTT and remake the decision: section 12(1) and (2) of the 2007 Act. If there is no error of law in the FTT's decision, the decision will stand. Secondly, although "error of law" is widely defined, it is not the case that the UT is entitled to remake the decision of the FTT simply because it does not agree with it, or because it thinks it can produce a better one. Thus, the reasons given for considering there to be an error of law really matter. Baroness Hale put it in this way in AH (Sudan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department at [30]:
"Appellate courts should not rush to find such misdirections simply because they might have reached a different conclusion on the facts or expressed themselves differently."
"The First-tier Tribunal Judge did not direct herself to this test and it is arguable that the evidence she referred to could not meet this high threshold………As a consequence I find that the decision by First-tier Tribunal Gurung-Thapa contained arguable and material errors of law."
(1) When addressing whether the effect of deportation on the children would be unduly harsh, the FTT Judge had wrongly taken into account the criminality of KB, giving rise to the public interest in deportation, as something to be weighed in the balance against the effect of separation. KO (Nigeria), which was decided after the FTT decision, had shown that approach to be erroneous.
(2) The FTT Judge did not direct herself to the right test in law for what was unduly harsh.
(3) The evidence before the FTT Judge was arguably insufficient to meet the correct test of undue harshness.
(1) the FTT Judge did not apply the correct test: in particular she did not recognise the elevated nature of the test or that it required much stronger emphasis than mere undesirability;
(2) the FTT Judge failed to give adequate reasons for her conclusion that the unduly harsh test was met;
(3) the FTT Judge took into account matters which were irrelevant to the unduly harsh test.
Analysis and conclusions
Ground 1: failure to apply the correct test
Ground 2: inadequate reasons
Ground 3: taking into account irrelevant matters
Conclusion
Lady Justice Asplin :
Lord Justice McCombe :