Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2024-003427
First-tier Tribunal No:

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 1st of May 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LANE

Between

ENTIOL TSAKO
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

Secretary of State for the Home Department Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr Raza
For the Respondent: Ms Lecointe, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 24 April 2025

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant is a citizen of Greece and of Albania, who was born on 15 May 2001 in Albania. On 22 September 2021, the appellant was convicted at Lincoln Crown Court of producing a controlled drug of class B, namely cannabis, for which he was sentenced to imprisonment for five months.
2. He appealed to the First-tier Tribunal against a decision by the respondent, dated 15 October 2021, to deport him from the United Kingdom having, under section 3(5) of the 1971 Act, deemed the appellant’s deportation to be conducive to the public good. By a decision promulgated on 23 April 2024, the First-tier Tribunal allowed the appeal. By a decision promulgated on 21 February 2025, I set aside the decision of the First-tier Tribunal and directed that the decision be remade in the Upper Tribunal following a resumed hearing.
3. At the resumed hearing at Field House on 24 April 2025, Ms Lecointe, Senior Presenting Officer for the Secretary of State, told me that she had been unable to find the papers which had been before the First-tier Tribunal (the appellant did not rely on any fresh evidence but relies on the bundle of documents before the Upper Tribunal at the initial hearing (error of law)). I directed a brief adjournment to provide Ms Lecointe with sufficient time to consider the papers and a further decision of the Secretary of State granting the appellant further leave to remain until 15 January 2030 (Ms Lecointe could not find this document on the Home Office systems available to her in court).
4. On the resumption of the hearing, Ms Lecointe told me that she did not seek to cross examine the appellant and that she did not challenge the authenticity of the grant of further leave to remain. She acknowledged that the Stage 1 decision of the Secretary of State was succinct (it stated no more than the details of the appellant’s offence and consequence sentence). She submitted that the appellant’s offence impacted negatively on society but she acknowledged that there was no such reasoning advanced in the decision letter.
5. Mr Raza submitted that the Stage 1 decision was, on the application of public law principles, so brief as to be legally flawed. The decision had not followed the Secretary of State’s own published guidance. Relevant and material matters had simply not been considered or, if the decision maker had considered them, there was no record of this in the decision letter. After more than four years, there had been no Stage 2 decision by the Secretary of State but instead a grant to the appellant of further leave to remain.
6. I am grateful to both advocates for the helpful and practical way in which they addressed the outstanding issues in this appeal. As I told the appellant and the representatives at the hearing, I consider that the Secretary of State’s Stage 1 decision was flawed for the reasons advanced by the grounds of appeal and in Mr Raza’s submissions. There was no evidence that the author of the decision letter had taken account of all material matters and that failure had rendered the decision unclear and incomplete. In practical terms, I cannot ignore the fact that the Secretary of State has not proceeded to make a Stage 2 decision but has instead granted the appellant a further period of leave to remain. I remake the decision allowing the appellant’s appeal against the Secretary of State’s Stage 1 decision. As in judicial review, the effect of my decision is that the Secretary of State may, if she chooses, issue a fresh Stage 1 decision giving adequate reasons. I do no more than note that any decision to do so would sit uneasily with the grant of further leave to the appellant expiring in 2030.
Notice of Decision
The appellant’s appeal against the decision of the Secretary of State dated 15 October 2021 is allowed.

C. N. Lane

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

Dated: 24 April 2025