Tribunal decisions

The decision

IAC-HW-AM-V1

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: EA/02774/2015

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at City Centre Tower, Birmingham
Decision & Reasons Promulgated
On 16th November 2016
On 8th December 2016

Before

DEPUTY upper tribunal JUDGE RENTON

Between

kehkshan rizwan
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION not made)
Appellant

and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Unrepresented
For the Respondent: Mrs H Aboni, Home Office Presenting Officer

DECISION AND REASONS

Introduction
1. The Appellant is a female citizen of Pakistan born on 22nd August 1977. On 18th December 2014 she was issued with an EEA Family Permit to allow her to accompany her spouse to the UK valid until 18th June 2015. On 8th June 2015 the Appellant applied for a residence card as the wife of her Sponsor, Saeed Rizwan, an Italian citizen resident in the UK. That application was refused for the reasons given in the Respondent's letter of 11th November 2015. The Appellant appealed, and her appeal was heard by First-tier Tribunal Judge Keith (the Judge) sitting at Harmondsworth on 14th March 2016. He allowed the appeal for the reasons given in his Decision dated 29th March 2016. The Respondent sought leave to appeal that decision, and on 23rd August 2016 such permission was granted.
Error of Law
2. I must first decide if the decision of the Judge contained a material error of law so that it should be set aside.
3. At the hearing before me, the Appellant appeared unrepresented, but indicated that she was happy for the hearing to proceed without representation.
4. The issue before the Judge at the original hearing was a narrow one. The Appellant's application had been refused because the Respondent was not satisfied that the Sponsor had been in employment following October 2015, and was therefore a qualified person for the purposes of Regulation 6(1) of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006 (the Regulations). The Judge allowed the appeal because he found from the evidence before him comprising a contract of employment and relevant wage slips that the Sponsor had remained in employment up to the date of the Appellant's application and therefore at the relevant time was a qualified person for the purposes of the Regulations.
5. At the hearing, Mrs Aboni submitted that the Judge had erred in law in coming to this conclusion because the relevant period that the Judge should have considered ought to have been until the date of the hearing before him in March 2016. However, Mrs Aboni accepted that the error of law was not material because there was evidence before the Judge of the Sponsor's employment up to the date of the hearing in March 2016.
6. Following the comments of Mrs Aboni, it was not necessary for me to hear from the Respondent. I find that there was an error of law in the decision of the Judge, but that that error was not material in that if the Judge had considered the period up to the date of hearing in March 2016 on the evidence before him he would have come to the conclusion that the Sponsor had continued in employment and therefore to be a qualified person for the purposes of the Regulations. He would therefore still have allowed the appeal had he considered the correct period. As the error of law is immaterial, I do not set aside the decision of the Judge.

Notice of Decision
The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of a material error on a point of law.
I do not set aside that decision.
The appeal to the Upper Tribunal is dismissed.
Anonymity
The First-tier Tribunal did not make an order for anonymity. I was not asked to do so, and indeed find no reason to do so, and therefore I make no order for anonymity.

Signed Date

Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Renton