Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: VA/28185/2012

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at : Field House
Determination Promulgated
On : 18 June 2013
On: 19 June 2013

Before

LORD BURNS
UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KEBEDE

Between

haroona gulzar
Appellant
and

ENTRY CLEARANCE OFFICER
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr Waqas Azhar (the Sponsor)
For the Respondent: Mr P Deller, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

DETERMINATION AND REASONS

1. The appellant, a citizen of Pakistan, was born on 19 March 1984. She has been given permission to appeal against the determination of First-tier Tribunal Judge Paul dismissing her appeal against the respondent’s decision to refuse entry clearance to the United Kingdom as a family visitor.

2. The appellant applied for entry clearance to the United Kingdom as a family visitor on 3 July 2012, stating in her application form that she intended to stay in the UK ten days, to visit her cousin Waqas Azhar. She stated that was a self-employed teacher and provided home tuition and had an annual income from employment of Rs 25000 in addition to income from her family.

3. The respondent, in refusing the appellant’s application, did not accept that she was genuinely seeking entry as a visitor or that she intended to leave the United Kingdom at the end of her visit, since she had no dependants, she had not substantiated her income and she had demonstrated few ties to Pakistan. Particular concerns arose out of unexplained deposits paid into her account, amounting to Rs 200,000 (£1,360), in June 2012, which were inconsistent with her claimed income and account history.

4. In her Notice of Appeal the appellant indicated that she did not require an oral hearing of her appeal. She referred, in her grounds, to further evidence attached relating to her employment and income and explaining the deposits into her account which came from the cashing-in of prize bonds. She also referred to her family income which came from agricultural and rented land and to other ties she had in Pakistan. In an Appeal Review, the Entry Clearance Manager considered the grounds of appeal but maintained the decision on the basis that the ECO’s concerns had not been addressed.

5. The appellant’s appeal was determined on the papers by the First-tier Tribunal. Judge Paul, in dismissing the appeal on 23 January 2013, commented on the lack of oral evidence and found that the documents submitted had not addressed the concerns raised in the refusal decision. He accordingly dismissed the appeal under the immigration rules.

6. In response to the appellant’s application to the Upper Tribunal, permission to appeal was granted on 5 April 2013 on the grounds that the judge had arguably failed to examine the documents and had simply endorsed the conclusions of the ECO and the ECM.

Appeal Hearing

7. The appeal came before us on 18 June 2013.

8. Mr Deller accepted that the judge’s decision ought to be set aside on the grounds that he appeared to have simply rubber-stamped the ECM’s conclusions without having given any consideration himself to the documentary evidence submitted by the appellant. We noted in addition that the ECM appeared in fact to have overlooked the documents submitted by the appellant at pages B18 to B20 and B23 to B32 and the judge’s decision compounded that error. We accordingly set aside Judge Paul’s decision.

9. In view of the fact that the appellant had previously requested that the appeal be determined on the papers, and given that the sponsor was in any event present before us, we considered it appropriate to go on to re-make the decision ourselves rather than remit it to the First-tier Tribunal. Both Mr Deller and the sponsor were in agreement. The sponsor confirmed that there was no further documentary evidence to be submitted and that the decision could be made on the evidence already available. He indicated that he was happy to answer any questions put to him.

10. In response to Mr Deller’s cross-examination, Mr Azhar confirmed that he had never sponsored a visit previously and that all the relevant documentary evidence had been submitted to response to the ECO’s concerns.

11. In response to our enquiry as to why the appellant was proposing to stay in a hotel rather than with him, Mr Azhar said that that was because he shared a house with someone and so could not accommodate her. He said that she was a teacher and taught in a private school whose name he did not know. She was his uncle’s daughter and would be coming to the United Kingdom for two to three weeks. She would return to Pakistan as all her family were there and she worked. He did not know if she owned her own property but he knew that she lived with her parents. He did not know where the deposits in her account had come from and neither did he know why those funds had largely disappeared from her account after her application had been refused. He last saw her three years ago.

12. Mr Deller submitted that the appellant had not met the burden of proof upon her and that the appeal had to be dismissed. Mr Azhar, in response, submitted that the documents addressed all the ECO’s concerns. The appellant would definitely go back to Pakistan after her visit.

Consideration and findings

13. The respondent, in refusing the appellant’s application, was particularly concerned with the lack of reliable evidence of her income and employment and the large, unexplained deposits in her account prior to her application being submitted. Mr Azhar, the sponsor, was unable to assist in that regard and appeared to have little knowledge of the appellant’s circumstances, aside from confirming that she was a teacher. He relied upon the documentary evidence from the appellant as providing an adequate response to the respondent’s concerns. However we do not consider that the evidence does in fact satisfactorily address those concerns.

14. The appellant’s bank statement shows two large deposits made in June 2012, for Rs 175,000 on 12 June 2012 and Rs 25,000 on 19 June 2012. The Rs 25,000 deposit is explained by the appellant as her income from employment, as is indeed consistent with the information provided in her visa application form. The Rs 175,000 is explained in the grounds of appeal as coming from prize bonds purchased from her savings which she had saved up for her trip and which she had cashed in. The appellant produced, with the grounds of appeal, copies of ten prize bonds each for Rs 40,000. However, what she did not include was any evidence that those bonds were in fact the source of the deposits into her account, since she produced no evidence to show when, where and if they had been cashed. Indeed, there is no explanation as to why the bonds were retained by her if she had cashed them in. The majority of the bonds all contain stamps dating from 1999 to 2005 suggesting that that was when they were purchased and thus somewhat undermining the claim that they represented savings for the current trip, several years later. Furthermore, the bonds do not give the name of the bond-holder and their value far exceeds the amount of money deposited into her account. All in all the bonds carry very little weight as evidence of the source of the deposits into the appellant’s account. Somewhat significantly, as we pointed out at the hearing, the majority of those funds appear to have been withdrawn from the account following the refusal of the appellant’s application, as shown in the bank statement submitted for the hearing, dated 1 September to 20 November 2012.

15. In addition to the lack of explanation about the deposits in the appellant’s account, there is little or no evidence of her income from employment. Whilst her bank statement shows deposits of Rs 25,000 consistent with a claimed monthly income of that amount, that is in turn more consistent with salaried employment rather than self-employment. The appellant’s evidence as to her employment is also somewhat limited in its reliability and weight, given that the documents produced appear to emanate from various sources rather than providing confirmation of the academy, The Teacher Training Academy Lahore, named in the grounds of appeal. At page B18 there is a document confirming employment for the past four years at Al-Azeem school, whilst B19 is a document from ELC confirming employment for the past four years. A letter subsequently produced by the appellant for the appeal, dated 11 September 2012, also confirms employment over the past four years. That letter, whilst apparently emanating from a different school, namely New Era College of Sciences, appears to be worded almost identically to the letter of 11 May 2012 from ELC. Rather than addressing the respondent’s concerns, those documents in fact give rise to further concerns about the reliability of the appellant’s claim as regards her employment.

16. Accordingly, we do not consider that the appellant has satisfactorily addressed the respondent’s concerns. In the light of the various unexplained discrepancies in the evidence, as outlined above, we conclude that she has failed to provide any reliable evidence of her financial and other circumstances in Pakistan. That in turn leads to concerns about the reliability of her stated intentions in applying to visit the United Kingdom and we do not consider that she has met the burden of proof to demonstrate that she is a genuine family visitor. We do not find that she is able to meet the requirements of the relevant immigration rule, namely paragraph 41 of HC 395 and we dismiss her appeal in that respect. Article 8 has not been raised, but in any event it is clearly not the case that the respondent’s decision gives rise to any claim in that respect.

DECISION

17. The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved an error on a point of law. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal is therefore set aside. We re-make the decision by dismissing the appeal on all grounds.

Signed Date: 18 June 2013

Upper Tribunal Judge Kebede