(1) A decision by the First-tier Tribunal not to decide a ground of appeal constitutes a ‘decision’ for the purposes of s.11(1) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. It may therefore be appealed to the Upper Tribunal.
(2) If an appellant’s appeal before the First-tier Tribunal succeeds on some grounds and fails on other grounds, the appellant will not be required to apply for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal in respect of any ground on which he or she failed, so long as a determination of that ground in the appellant’s favour would not have conferred on the appellant any material (ie tangible) benefit, compared with the benefit flowing from the ground or grounds on which the appellant was successful in the First-tier Tribunal.
(3) In the event that the respondent to the appeal before the First-tier Tribunal obtains permission to appeal against that Tribunal’s decision regarding the grounds upon which the First-tier Tribunal found in favour of the appellant, then, ordinarily, the appellant will be able to rely upon rule 24(3)(e) of the 2008 Rules in order to argue in a response that the appellant should succeed on the grounds on which he or she was unsuccessful in the First-tier Tribunal. Any such response must be filed and served in accordance with those Rules and the Upper Tribunal’s directions.
(4) If permission to appeal is required, any application for permission should be made to the First-tier Tribunal in accordance with rule 33 of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Rules 2014, within the time limits there set out. This includes cases where the appellant has succeeded on some grounds but failed on others, in respect of which a material benefit would flow (see (2) above).
(5) There is, however, no jurisdictional fetter on the Upper Tribunal entertaining an application for permission to appeal, even though the condition contained in rule 21(2)(b) of the 2008 Rules has not been met, in that the First-tier Tribunal has not refused (wholly or partly), or has not refused to admit, an application for permission to appeal made to that Tribunal. Rule 7(2)(a) of the 2008 Rules permits the Upper Tribunal to waive any failure to comply with a requirement of the Rules. The guidance in EG and NG (UT rule 17: withdrawal; rule 24: Scope) Ethiopia [2013] UKUT 143 (IAC) is otherwise confirmed.
(6) The Upper Tribunal is, nevertheless, very unlikely to be sympathetic to a request that it should invoke rule 7(2)(a), where a party (A), who could and should have applied for permission to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal against an adverse decision of that Tribunal, seeks to challenge that decision only after the other party has been given permission to appeal against a decision in the same proceedings which was in favour of A.
(7) When deciding whether to make an anonymity direction, the starting point is that open justice is a fundamental principle of our legal system. Subject to statutory prohibitions on disclosure, any derogation from that principle should be allowed only to the extent that is necessary in order to secure the proper administration of justice. As a result, just as is the case in other jurisdictions, the parties in immigration proceedings should be named, unless doing so would cause harm, or create the risk of harm, of such a nature as to require derogation from the basic principle. In most cases involving international protection, anonymity of an individual will be required, lest the proceedings themselves should aggravate or give rise to such a risk. That will normally be the case throughout the course of the proceedings, including any appeals.
Citations:
[2019] UKUT 216 (IAC)
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Immigration
Updated: 27 November 2022; Ref: scu.644391