Tribunal decisions

The decision

IAC-FH-CK-V1

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: IA/14186/2015

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Field House
Decision & Reasons Promulgated
On 27 January 2017
On 03 February 2017

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE DAVEY

Between

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Appellant
and

Mr Okechukwu Michael Diribe
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION NOT MADE)
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr N Bramble, Senior Presenting Officer
For the Respondent: Mr J Dhanji, Counsel, instructed by Rashid & Rashid Solicitors (Merton High Street)

DECISION AND REASONS

1. In this decision the Appellant is referred to as the Secretary of State and the Respondent is referred to as the claimant.

2. The claimant, a national of Nigeria, date of birth 30 September 1982, appealed against the Respondent's decision, dated 27 March 2015, to make removal directions under Section 10 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, a form IS.151A having been served on 13 November 2014.

3. The matter came before First-tier Tribunal Judge Martins (the judge), who, on 22 August 2015, allowed the appeal under the Immigration Rules, with reference to the Appellant's private life, and also under Article 8 ECHR. The Secretary of State challenged the decision (D) essentially on two grounds. First, that the judge had failed to give adequate or sufficient reasons for his acceptance of the Appellant's sexuality and problems faced by the Appellant in the past. Secondly, the way the judge addressed Article 8 ECHR outside of the Rules.

4. Mr Bramble rightly accepts that the permission to appeal that was given by First-tier Tribunal Judge Grimmett, dated 20 December 2016, does not really address either the grounds or the decision itself and it is by no means clear how permission was ever really granted. I consider the grounds as they have been made and no application was made, for perfectly proper reasons, to amend them. It is therefore also the case that the Respondent's decision letter (the Reasons for Refusal Letter) does not particularly highlight credibility issues going to the core of the Appellant's claim as to his sexuality and past events in Nigeria. The position is, I find that, for good or ill even if they would not have been the way I express them, the judge at [D68 to 70] set out the basis on which he concluded that the Appellant's private life justified his remaining in the United Kingdom with reference to the Rules.

5. Some of the language used by the judge may be a trifle difficult but the fact is the substance of the decision is one that he was entitled to make, did make and no other Tribunal seems to me likely to have reached, on those same bases, a different decision to that which he did. Mr Bramble therefore, perfectly sensibly, accepts that if the Appellant succeeded on that basis the issue of whether the judge erred over the considerations of Article 8ECHR outside of the Rules add nothing to the matter.

6. For my part, had it been necessary to do so I would have taken the view that the judge did conflate issues of private life and family life which were not sustainable and I would have felt it necessary to interfere with the Original Tribunal Judge's decision. However, in the light of the submissions made it seems to me that no purpose is served in doing so and a remaking of it would make no difference ultimately to the fact that the Appellant was found to have complied with the Immigration Rules. Accordingly the appeal of the Secretary of State is dismissed.

NOTICE OF DECISION

The appeal is dismissed

No anonymity order was made nor is one required or necessary.

Signed Date 2 February 2017

Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Davey

TO THE RESPONDENT
FEE AWARD

The judge made a fee order and that decision also stands.

Signed Date 2 February 2017

Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Davey