The following basic principles can be derived from the present case law concerning the issue of the public interest in relation to the deportation of foreign criminals:
(a) In a case of automatic deportation, full account must be taken of the strong public interest in removing foreign citizens convicted of serious offences, which lies not only in the prevention of further offences on the part of the individual concerned, but in deterring others from committing them in the first place.
(b) Deportation of foreign criminals expresses society’s condemnation of serious criminal activity and promotes public confidence in the treatment of foreign citizens who have committed them.
(c) The starting-point for assessing the facts of the offence of which an individual has been committed, and their effect on others, and on the public as a whole, must be the view taken by the sentencing judge.
(d) The appeal has to be dealt with on the basis of the situation at the date of the hearing.
(e) Full account should also be taken of any developments since sentence was passed, for example the result of any disciplinary adjudications in prison or detention, or any OASys or licence report.
(f) In considering the relevant facts on ‘private and family life’ under article 8 of the Human Rights Convention, ‘for a settled migrant who has lawfully spent all or the major part of his or her childhood and youth in [this] country, very serious reasons are required to justify expulsion’.
(g) Such serious reasons are needed ‘all the more so where the person concerned committed the relevant offences as a juvenile’ ; but ‘very serious violent offences can justify expulsion even if they were committed by a minor’. Other very serious offending may also have this consequence.
Judges:
Mr Justice Blake, President
Upper Tribunal Judge Freeman
Citations:
[2012] UKUT 46 (IAC)
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Immigration
Updated: 31 January 2022; Ref: scu.450983