Suthendran v Immigration Appeal Tribunal: HL 1977

The Appellant had been given leave under section 3(1)(b) of the 1971 Act to enter and remain in the United Kingdom for 12 months. Before it expired, he applied for his leave to be varied by way of extension under section 3(3)(a) of the Act. The respondent refused the application; in consequence, the Appellant appealed against the decision relying upon section 14(1) of the 1971 Act: ‘Subject to the provision of this part of the Act, a person who has a limited leave under this Act to enter or remain in the United Kingdom may appeal to an adjudicator against variation of the leave (whether as regards duration or conditions), or against any refusal to vary it;’ The Courts were troubled as to whether or not the Appellant had a right of appeal to the adjudicator under section 14.
Held: (Majority) Section 14(1) was not to be read as giving a right of appeal to a person whose limited leave to remain in the United Kingdom had expired at the time of applying for a variation, given the phrase ‘a person who has a limited leave’. The majority were not prepared to read that phraseology as including persons who had previously had leave to remain.
Lord Russell of Killowen said: ‘In my opinion this provision is not applicable to a limited leave which has expired and no longer has any operation: the Secretary of State has no powers in relation to such a former limited leave. He has in such a case a power to give de novo a leave to remain, and in the case of an application to vary an expired limited leave by extension he will no doubt treat the application as an application for the grant of leave to remain: but I observe that there is no right of appeal from a refusal to grant such a leave to remain . .’

Judges:

Lord Russell of Killowen

Citations:

[1977] AC 359, [1977] Imm AR 44, [1976] 3 All ER 611, [1976] UKHL 8

Links:

Bailii

Statutes:

Immigration Act 1971 3(1)(b)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

DisapprovedIn re Poh HL 1983
The applicant had unsuccessfully applied to the Divisional Court for leave to apply for judicial review and renewed his application, equally unsuccessfully, to the Court of Appeal. He then petitioned for leave to appeal to the House of Lords.
CitedHalil and Another v Davidson HL 3-Jul-1980
The appellants, Turkish Cypriots, arrived on visitor permits, but after extensions, were given notice that their leave to stay would come to an end.
Held: The appeal failed. The notice given was in the form disapproved in Suthendram, but the . .
CitedMirza and Others, Regina (on The Applications of) v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 14-Dec-2016
In each case the applicant had sought to extend their leave to remain within the necessary time scale, but their applications had been defective. In one case the required biometric information had not been supplied, and in the other two the fees had . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Litigation Practice, Immigration

Updated: 25 October 2022; Ref: scu.182918