Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-001568

First-tier Tribunal No: HU/50912/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On the 11 August 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE HIRST
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE SWANEY

Between

Adel Asantewwaa Kumi
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

Secretary of State for the Home Department
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Layne, counsel instructed by Wisemart Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms McKenzie, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 14 July 2025

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The Appellant appeals with permission from the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 4 December 2024, dismissing her appeal on human rights grounds.
Background
2. The Appellant is a Ghanaian national born on 6 August 2006. On 7 April 2022 she made an application to join her mother, the sponsor, which was refused on 15 December 2022.
3. The Appellant’s appeal came before the First-tier Tribunal on 20 November 2024. The First-tier Tribunal accepted that the Appellant was the daughter of the sponsor, and found that there was “a wealth of evidence” supporting the contention that the sponsor was solely responsible for the Appellant. However, the First-tier Tribunal accepted the Respondent’s contention that the listing of the Appellant’s father as informant on her birth certificate dated 12 July 2019 meant that the otherwise compelling evidence of sole responsibility was undermined. The First-tier Tribunal found that family life existed between the Appellant and sponsor but concluded that the refusal of entry clearance was not disproportionate and dismissed the appeal under the Immigration Rules and Article 8 ECHR.
4. Permission to appeal was granted by the Upper Tribunal on 13 May 2025 on the basis that it was arguable that the First-tier Tribunal judge had made a mistake of fact as to the birth certificate and that this in turn had infected the reasoning as to why the father’s name appeared on the certificate.
5. The appeal came before a panel of the Upper Tribunal at an error of law hearing on 14 July 2025. Having heard submissions from the parties we indicated that there was an error of law in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal and set it aside. Having given Ms McKenzie additional time to prepare, we remade the decision, which is given with reasons below.
Error of law
6. The issue of whether the sponsor had ‘sole responsibility’ for the Appellant’s upbringing under paragraph E-ECC 1.6 of the Immigration Rules was the central issue in the appeal. The First-tier Tribunal noted (§14) that there was “a wealth of evidence” before it demonstrating that the sponsor had sole responsibility for the Appellant as at the date of the hearing, and referred to that evidence as “compelling” (§18).
7. The judge nonetheless concluded that the sponsor did not have sole responsibility for the Appellant on the basis of the Appellant’s birth certificate dated 12 July 2019, which recorded the Appellant’s father’s name under the section marked ‘informant’. At §15 of the decision, the First-tier Tribunal summarised the sponsor’s oral evidence that the Appellant’s father had been recorded “as the informant on the first certificate/on the weigh book” and noted that
“It was agreed in the hearing that the weigh book and the first certificate referred to in the witness statement are one and the same thing.”
8. The sponsor’s explanation was that an updated ‘new style’ birth certificate was required in order to obtain a biometric passport for the Appellant; the Appellant’s father was named as informant because the information on the 2019 certificate was that held by the registry office and he had registered the Appellant’s birth. However, the First-tier Tribunal found (§18) that the fact that the birth certificate named the Appellant’s father as the informant undermined the otherwise compelling evidence provided of the Sponsor’s sole responsibility and indicated that the Appellant’s father had ongoing involvement in her upbringing.
9. The Appellant’s grounds of appeal and Mr Layne’s oral submissions contended that the First-tier Tribunal had erred (at §15) by conflating the Appellant’s first birth certificate with the ‘weigh book’, which recorded the Appellant’s birth weight, and that the Tribunal’s statement that it was agreed in the hearing that the ‘weigh book’ and the first certificate were the same document was in error. The difficulty with that argument is that a party asserting that the First-tier Tribunal has mischaracterised the evidence or submissions at the hearing must make good that assertion by evidence. As Ms McKenzie noted in her submissions, the Appellant had not done so; there was no note of the evidence from counsel nor any agreed note of the evidence or submissions during the hearing.
10. But in any event, the panel did not need to resolve the issue. Even if the judge was right to conclude that the Appellant’s father had acted as ‘informant’ in obtaining the new certificate in 2019, there was no other evidence before the First-tier Tribunal that he was involved in the Appellant’s upbringing and no evidence at all that he was involved in any way in the Appellant’s life as at the date of the application for entry clearance or the First-tier Tribunal hearing. By contrast, as the judge recognised at §§14 and 18, there was “a wealth of evidence” before the Tribunal, which the judge described as “compelling”, which indicated that the sponsor had sole responsibility. The conclusion that the Appellant’s father was involved in her life such that he shared responsibility for her upbringing with the sponsor was not a rationally supportable conclusion on a balanced consideration of the evidence before the First-tier Tribunal.
11. The panel therefore concluded that there was a material error of law in the First-tier Tribunal’s conclusion that the sponsor did not have sole responsibility for the Appellant and set the decision aside.
Remaking
12. The parties were agreed that the appeal could be remade in the Upper Tribunal without the need to hear oral evidence. Accordingly, having given Ms McKenzie additional time to prepare, we heard submissions from both parties and reserved our decision.
13. For the Appellant, Mr Layne submitted that as the First-tier Tribunal had noted there was a wealth of compelling evidence indicating that the sponsor had sole responsibility for the Appellant. The sponsor had had control and direction over all of the important decisions in the Appellant’s life, including her education, who she lived with, and had consistently provided financial support. The test in TD (Paragraph 297(i)(e): “sole responsibility”) Yemen [2006] UKAIT 00049 was met. The refusal of entry clearance was a disproportionate interference in the family life of both the Appellant and the sponsor.
14. For the Respondent, Ms McKenzie relied on the refusal decision dated 15 December 2022. She submitted that the fact that the Appellant’s father was named as ‘informant’ on the 12 July 2019 birth certificate indicated that he had involvement in her upbringing. TD (Yemen) made it clear that it would be “exceptional” for one parent to have sole responsibility where both parents were involved with the child’s upbringing; there was no exceptionality here. The school documents and evidence of money transfers did not show a consistent picture. There was no evidence from the Appellant’s father to indicate that he consented for the Appellant to come to the UK; entry clearance would breach family life.
Discussion and decision
15. Whether a parent has sole responsibility for a child’s upbringing is in every case a question of fact to be decided upon all the evidence; the test is whether the parent has “continuing control and direction of the child’s upbringing including making all the important decisions in the child’s life”: TD (Yemen) at §52.
16. There is no longer any dispute that the sponsor is the mother of the Appellant. We consider that the First-tier Tribunal was right to observe that there was a “wealth of evidence” demonstrating that the sponsor has sole responsibility for the Appellant. We accept the sponsor’s evidence in her witness statement that the Appellant’s father was named as informant on the 2019 birth certificate because he registered the Appellant’s birth when she was born and the 2019 certificate simply reproduces the registry information. We also accept that the Appellant’s father has not been involved in any meaningful way in her life since the Appellant was a baby and that since 2013 he has not had any further contact with the sponsor or the Appellant. There is no evidence that the Appellant’s father plays any role in her life.
17. The evidence before us shows that the sponsor has been responsible throughout for financially and emotionally supporting the Appellant and making arrangements for her care. When she came to the UK in 2013 to work, she arranged for the Appellant to live with a friend. When that arrangement broke down the sponsor made alternative arrangements for the Appellant to live first with her grandmother and then subsequently to attend boarding school and to live with a cousin during school holidays. The evidence demonstrates that the sponsor has consistently been in contact with her daughter’s schools and has been fully involved in all decisions regarding her education as well as paying the tuition fees. The sponsor has made arrangements for her daughter’s medical treatment and paid her medical bills. She has made decisions for her daughter to be baptised as a Catholic and to play an active part in the church community. The sponsor has sent consistent financial remittances for the Appellant’s care and upbringing. She is in frequent contact with the Appellant and has encouraged her to build a relationship with her half-siblings in the UK. We conclude that the TD (Yemen) test is met and the sponsor has sole responsibility for the Appellant’s upbringing. We therefore find that the requirements of the Immigration Rules are met.
18. The First-tier Tribunal found that there was family life between the sponsor and the Appellant and we agree. We have found that the Immigration Rules are met. We find that it is in the Appellant’s best interests to live in the UK with her mother, who has provided loving care to the best of her ability notwithstanding their separation. Weighing the statutory factors under s117B Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, we find that the refusal of entry clearance is a disproportionate interference with the Article 8 rights of the Appellant and the sponsor.
Notice of Decision
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of an error of law and is set aside.
The Appellant’s appeal is allowed under the Immigration Rules and Article 8 ECHR.

L Hirst

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

28 July 2025