Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: IA/09755/2015

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Birmingham
Decision & Reasons Promulgated
On 27th February 2017
On 26th April 2017

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MAHMOOD

Between

aAMIR SIDDIQUE
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION NOT MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Respondent: Not Represented and Not in Attendance
For the Appellant: Mr D Mills, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The Appellant appeal with permission against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Juss. The Appellant had appealed against the decision of the Respondent to refuse his application for a variation of leave to remain and a decision to remove him pursuant to section 47 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006.

2. The Judge of the First-tier Tribunal had refused the appeal based on both the Immigration Rules and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

3. First-tier Tribunal Judge Simpson granted the Appellant permission to appeal. The Appellant’s grounds of appeal were that he had informed the Tribunal of his change of address from one address in Slough to another address in Slough. Both addresses are referred to within the Tribunal’s file. I shall not refer to them in this decision as it will be published. The Appellant claimed he did not get notice of the hearing and so he did not attend.

4. At the hearing before me there was no attendance by or on behalf of the Appellant at 10am when I was ready to hear this case. I therefore put the matter to the back of my list. When I had completed all of the other cases in my list I had then returned to this case. There was still no attendance by the Appellant. There were no travel or weather issues. I noted that the Appellant’s address was now in inner city Birmingham, just a short bus journey to the hearing centre. He had provided that address in his grounds of appeal.

5. Mr Mills said that I should proceed with the hearing. I checked the Tribunal’s file and saw that the Appellant had been served with the notice of hearing at the address he provided on his grounds of appeal. That address being in Birmingham. I considered Rule 38 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008. I am satisfied that the Appellant was notified by post of the hearing in good time. I saw no reason not to proceed with the hearing.

6. The Appellant may well be acting in person, but it is clear that he has had some assistance in drafting his various documents, including his grounds of appeal against the Judge’s decision. There have been numerous changes of address by the Appellant. Even if the Appellant later contends he was not aware of today’s hearing. it was incumbent upon him to make appropriate checks to see if there was a hearing date and when it was to take place. In my judgment if the Appellant later contends he had made telephone calls to inform the Tribunal office of yet more changes of address then there must be proof of such a claim by him. If the Appellant later contends that he had sent correspondence to the Tribunal office of yet more changes of address then in my judgment it was incumbent upon him to also check if a hearing date had been provided to his “old” address in Birmingham. It seems to me that there has been clever use of changes of address by the Appellant.

7. Mr Mills said that the Appellant’s case was solely based on private life and there was no prospect of its success in view of the case law which the Judge had referred to, namely the Supreme Court’s decision in Patel v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] UKSC 72. I note that there is quite a history of the Appellant apparently not receiving documents/attending to requests. For example, this had been a feature of his failure to enrol for his biometrics with the Home Office. There was a mandatory refusal of his application.

8. No evidence has been provided of the Appellant’s claim and there has been nothing which could possibly be shown to enable the Appellant’s appeal to succeed. Therefore, not only has the Appellant failed to attend the hearing, he has produced nothing to show he could possibly ever have succeeded in his appeal before the First-tier Tribunal in any event. Indeed in view of the relatively recent arrival of the Appellant to the United Kingdom in 2014 as a student, it is impossible to see on what basis any appeal based on the Immigration Rules or Article 8 of the European Convention could possibly succeed.

9. Therefore, in considering section 12 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 I conclude that there is no material error of law in the Judge’s decision. In any event, even if there was, there is simply nothing that the Appellant has put forward to show that the result could have been different. I therefore uphold the Judge’s decision.

Notice of Decision

There was no material error of law in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal shall stand.
The Appellant’s appeal therefore remains dismissed pursuant to the Immigration Rules and pursuant to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

No anonymity direction is made.

Signed Date: 27 February 2017

Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Mahmood