England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE IMMIGRATION APPEAL TRIBUNAL

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Tuesday, 27th November 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE HENRY:In this case the appellants are mother, son (now aged 19) and daughter (now aged 21), who are citizens of Bangladesh. They appeal, with permission, against the determination of an adjudicator, Mr Batiste, dismissing their appeals against the decision, on 23rd June 1999, of the respondent, the Entry Clearance Officer at Dhaka, refusing to grant them entry clearance with a view to settlement as the wife and children of Mr Kazi Mohammad Gous Miah. Before us they have been represented by Mr Shah of counsel, who also appeared before the Immigration Appeal Tribunal, for whose submissions we are grateful.
2. The issues have been limited, in the course of the forensic path this case has taken, and the appeal now centres on maintenance. Because of the rules in section 19 of the Immigration Act, the appellants are entitled to succeed only if they can show that at the date of the decision in June 1999 it was the case that, if they had been granted the entry clearance they sought, they would have been maintained and accommodated adequately without recourse to public funds. It is the maintenance aspect upon which this application for permission to appeal depends.
3. One of the great difficulties confronting the appellants is that they are dependent on the sponsor, Mr Miah, for much of the evidence they have brought forward. He had not been frank with the tribunal, as the tribunal found, in a number of respects and that, of course, harms them because they are dependent on his evidence.
4. The sponsor was, at the date of the decision and at all material times, living on benefits, but before the tribunal he claimed to have had two jobs. He tried to persuade the tribunal that those were real jobs and that he was earning as a result of them, but, as the tribunal found, both of those jobs were shams. One was with a solicitor. He put that forward as a real job, but it was not, in the sense that it was not remunerated: it was a task taken on pro bono with a view to gaining experience. The second job was with a company called Sonali Enterprises. However, he had only worked for them for two weeks in all, and that was spasmodically. The adjudicator found that his employment with Sonali was "a sham, contrived for the purpose of these applications". That claim was investigated by the Immigration Appeal Tribunal, who concluded that the adjudicator's comments on this were entirely merited.
5. It does not stop there. Two subsequent job offers fell to be examined. Both were made outside the period of six months from the date of the decision and were not foreseeable at the date of the decision. But they were not jobs of substance in any event and were found by the Immigration Appeal Tribunal simply not to be credible. The tribunal found:

"It is clear from the letters that they arise from enquiries by the Sponsor and for that reason it is in our view right to regard them in the same light as the documentation said to show the Sponsor's employment. Despite the (unsubstantiated) assertion in the grounds that the offer is genuine, we again see no reason to differ from the Adjudicator's assessment."

6. The adjudicator's assessment had been that there was little reason to attach any credence to the offer.
7. Lastly, the appellants rely on £9,000 of savings that the first appellant said she had. In paragraph 28 of their report the Immigration Appeal Tribunal said:

"Last is the issue of the first Appellant's alleged savings. ... It is said that the First Appellant had at the date of the decision about £9,000 in savings. The Respondent appears to have taken the view that one (at least) of the documents evidencing the savings was a forgery, but noted in any event that the First Appellant's possession of such a large amount of money was not easy to reconcile with the Sponsor's lifestyle, and that there was nothing to show that the money actually was the First Appellant's, to treat as her own and bring with her as was claimed."

8. That was a long time ago, and none of the evidential weaknesses of these documents have in that time been remedied. In their penultimate paragraph the tribunal said:

"Even if there had been a satisfactory explanation, it is difficult to see that the savings would have made any substantial difference to the case. They have to be seen in the context of our other findings on the maintenance said to be available. If the savings are there, they are there alone, for neither we nor the Adjudicator have accepted the other evidence of maintenance. The sum in question, if none of it had to be consumed in the expenses of coming to the United Kingdom, and if properly invested here so as to conserve capital, might be expected to produce an income of about £400 per year, or £8 per week. That is not a sum which would make any difference to the outcome of this appeal. If capital is to be spent in order to provide day-to-day maintenance, the sum will soon be exhausted. How soon we do not know, but it does not matter, because this is not a case of the family simply needing to be `tided over' until other income begins: there is no evidence that any other income ever will begin. It follows that even if the savings are available to the First Appellant as claimed, they do not enable the Appellants to establish that at the date of the decision they met the requirements of the Rules."

9. Therefore, the tribunal concluded that the appellants had not shown that the adjudicator's determination was flawed or that the respondent was wrong to refuse them entry clearance, and they dismissed the appeal.
10. Permission to appeal that dismissal was sought from the single Lord Justice, who made three points. The first was that two specialist appellate authorities had made adverse findings of fact against the appellants in relation to the prospect of financial provision from the sponsor and the availability of the work offered in England. There were no grounds for permitting a further appeal in relation to those facts. Second, the point was made that, even if the Court of Appeal was willing to look at the further evidence about money on deposit, there was no real prospect of that evidence disturbing the Immigration Appeal Tribunal's approach to the relevance of that evidence (paragraph 33 was referred to in terms). Lastly, so far as Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights is concerned, there was ample authority for the proposition that Council of Europe states were entitled to maintain firm, fair immigration policies.
11. We have been reminded of two letters addressed to Philomena Reidy, the ex-wife of the sponsor. Those letters do not make clear what she said. We are told that she would have written out of jealousy and that what she wrote would be lies. However, that does not impact on this hearing because no reliance was put on any such matter by the Immigration Appeal Tribunal.
12. I see nothing in the material before us that would justify the grant of permission to appeal in this case. This application for permission must therefore be dismissed.
13. LORD JUSTICE JUDGE: I agree.
Order: application for permission to appeal dismissed.