i) There is no burden at the outset of an application on a claimant to demonstrate that a marriage to an EEA national is not one of convenience.
ii) IS (marriages of convenience) Serbia [2008] UKAIT 31 establishes only that there is an evidential burden on the claimant to address evidence justifying reasonable suspicion that the marriage is entered into for the predominant purpose of securing residence rights.
iii) The guidance of the EU Commission is noted and appended.
An Albanian woman who had been married to and living with a Greek man for 12 years and had two children with him was refused a visa to accompany him on a visit to this country on the ground that theirs was a marriage of convenience, a belief which, as the Upper Tribunal said, was on the information supplied with the application ‘simply ludicrous’ . There was no burden on the claimant in an application for a family permit to establish that she was not party to a marriage of convenience unless the circumstances known to the decision-maker gave reasonable ground for suspecting that that was the case. Where there was such a suspicion the matter required further investigation and the claimant should be invited to respond to by producing evidential material to dispel it. But suspicion was not enough. The claimant was only disqualified if it was established that the marriage was one of convenience. The question for the judge was ‘in the light of the totality of the information before me, including the assessment of the claimant’s answers and any information provided, am I satisfied that it is more probable than not this is a marriage of convenience?’
Judges:
Blake J P, Freemen UTJ
Citations:
[2012] UKUT 38 (IAC), [2012] Imm AR 3
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Sadovska and Another v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 26-Jul-2017
The parties had applied to be married. S was a European citizen, and the intended groom was an overstayer from Pakistan. They were refused a licence, and taken into custody, and now appealed against refusal of a licence.
Held: The appeal . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Immigration
Updated: 04 October 2022; Ref: scu.450980