UTIAC (1) This case provides an example of the importance of co-operation and communication between the two jurisdictions, family and immigration, where two sets of parallel proceedings, closely dependent upon each other are ongoing.
(2) Following the Ruling of the Upper Tribunal in RS (immigration and family court proceedings) India [2012] UKUT 218 (IAC), the appellant’s Article 8 case against deportation fell to be determined in the light of the judgment of the family court regarding the best interests of the appellant’s child, H. The family court held that H’s best interests did not lie with her parents but by being placed in long-term foster care in the United Kingdom. The family court regarded it as acceptable for contact with H’s parents to be face-to-face annually (by H’s visiting them in India, at public expense) and monthly by means of Skype.
(3) Since those arrangements satisfied H’s best interests in the family proceedings, where those interests were the paramount concern, it followed that the Tribunal could be satisfied, when considering H’s best interests as a primary consideration in the deportation proceedings, that the appellant’s deportation did not interfere with H’s best interests.
(4) The arrangements identified by the family court as meeting H’s best interests provided for the likelihood of the appellant’s deportation. The family court took into account [53] of the Tribunal’s Ruling in [2012] UKUT 218.
(5) The appellant’s deportation was, accordingly, not unlawful on human rights grounds.
Blake J P, McFarlane LJ, Martin UTJ
[2013] UKUT 82 (IAC)
Bailii
England and Wales
Immigration, Family, Human Rights
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.472146