George v Secretary of State for The Home Department: Admn 9 Dec 2011

The claimant sought judicial review of the refusal to reinstate his indefinite leave to remain after successfully appealing against a deportation order.
Held: The claim failed. Bidder QC J said: ‘the wording of section 5 is tolerably clear and the other statutory or regulatory provisions touching on the question of deportation and revocation strongly suggest that had it been Parliament’s intention that an appeal against the refusal to revoke a deportation order should automatically restore ILR it would have been a straightforward matter to achieve that. Instead, I am satisfied that, analogously to the position under rule 392, following a successful appeal, ILR remains revoked giving a discretion to the Secretary of State to determine whether to re-grant ILR or to give shorter discretionary leave.’
. . And ‘having concluded that the words of section 5 are clear and that there is no reason to imply that the effect of a successful appeal of a decision to refuse to revoke a deportation order is to revive ILR, neither do I find, either on principle, or in the particular circumstances of this case, that the Secretary of State was bound, once Immigration Judge Neuberger had allowed the Claimant’s appeal, to grant ILR. Indeed, having regard to the ‘borderline’ nature of that decision and the manifold uncertainties in and unpredictability of the Claimant’s private and family life and the question marks over his resolution to lead a law abiding life, the same policy reasons distinguished by successive judges in the cases I have cited above, convince me that the Secretary of State was acting lawfully and sensibly to confine her grant of leave to a discretionary six months in this case.’

Judges:

Bidder QC J

Citations:

[2011] EWHC 3247 (Admin)

Links:

Bailii

Statutes:

Immigration Act 1971 5, Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 67 76

Cited by:

Appeal fromGeorge, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for The Home Department CA 23-Oct-2012
The claimant had had indefinite leave to remain. He was convicted of a serious offence and ordered to be deported. He successfully appealed against that order, but now said that the effect of that was to revive his indefinite leave to remain.
At first instanceGeorge, Regina (on The Application of) v The Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 14-Mar-2014
The court was asked: ‘If a criminal who previously had leave to remain in this country is liable to deportation because of his offences, but cannot actually be deported because to remove him would infringe his rights under the European Convention . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Immigration, Crime

Updated: 01 October 2022; Ref: scu.449889