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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> TD (Albania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 619 (29 April 2021) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2021/619.html Cite as: [2021] EWCA Civ 619 |
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ON APPEAL FROM THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
(IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER)
Upper Tribunal Judge Plimmer
HU/04039/2019
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
LORD JUSTICE DINGEMANS
and
LADY JUSTICE ANDREWS
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TD (Albania) |
Appellant |
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and |
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Secretary of State for the Home Department |
Respondent |
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Émilie Pottle (instructed by Government Legal Department) for the Respondent
Hearing date : 22 April 2021
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Crown Copyright ©
Lord Justice Peter Jackson:
Overview
The statutory framework
"117C (1) The deportation of foreign criminals is in the public interest.
(2) The more serious the offence committed by a foreign criminal, the greater is the public interest in deportation of the criminal.
(3) In the case of a foreign criminal ("C") who has not been sentenced to a period of imprisonment of four years of more, the public interest requires Cs deportation unless Exception 1 or Exception 2 applies.
(4) Exception 1 applies where—
a. C has been lawfully resident in the United Kingdom for most of C 's life,
b. C is socially and culturally integrated in the United Kingdom, and
c. There would be very signi?cant obstacles to Cs integration into the country to which C is proposed to be deported.
(5) Exception 2 applies where C has a genuine and subsisting relationship with a qualifying partner, or a genuine and subsisting parental relationship with a qualifying child, and the effects of Cs deportation on the partner or child would be unduly harsh.
(6) In the case of a foreign criminal who has been sentenced to a period of imprisonment of at least four years, the public interest requires deportation unless there are very compelling circumstances, over and above those described in Exceptions I and 2.
Paragraphs 398 and 399 of the Immigration Rules correspond to ss. 117C(6) and (5) respectively.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal
"27. The central issue is whether it would be unduly harsh for the children to remain in the UK even though the appellant is to be deported. The respondent makes the points that the appellant's British citizen partner is entitled to receive support in the form of benefits, the children have free education and healthcare in the UK, and that she has family members who could assist in the care of the children.
28. With regard to the children, I have a letter in the appellant's bundle from [name] School. L is noted to be a reasonably well-behaved child but there are safeguarding issues. E raises more significant concerns. She has mentioned "killing herself". It is not clear how serious that suggestion was but it is also noted that she has indicated that she feels depressed.
29. In evidence before me, the appellant's partner made a telling point. She said that the children would not be able to keep in touch with the father if he left the UK. She would not allow it over the telephone or Skype if he were deported. She would not allow it because it would involve them having to say goodbye at the end of the conversation. It would appear that when he spoke to them from prison (although they didn't know he was in prison), they became very upset when the conversation ended, such that she would not allow them to be put through that again. She added for good measure that if the appellant committed any further offences which meant he was liable to imprisonment, she would end the relationship at that point. She could not go through it again.
30. Clearly the deportation of any father will have an impact on the children. They will be very upset. I have no psychiatric evidence or report from a social worker because the children are entirely unaware of these proceedings. It was not suggested that I should adjourn for any such evidence. Mr Muman indicated that having taken instructions from his client, his client was insistent that the matter should proceed.
31. I have to have regard to the pressing public interest in the deportation of foreign criminals. I must however balance that against the best interests of the children viewed through the lens of the Rules and the interference with family life.
32. In considering the public interest, I have regard to the fact that the appellant is a persistent offender though I accept his offending falls at lower end of the scale. His longest prison sentence is 8 months. All indications are that these proceedings have had a salutary effect on him. He is in work and l have no evidence that he is not cooperating with his probation officer.
33. Returning to the impact on the children, I am satisfied that the impact will be significant, particularly on the two eldest children. I am equally satisfied that family life in any real sense will not be able to continue through modern means of communication. The appellant is the breadwinner and the family will lose their breadwinner. The mother will be thrown back onto benefits. I cannot but find that it is in the best interests of the children that the appellant remains part of the family in the UK. That however is not the critical issue and neither can it be a trump card.
34. I have given this matter anxious consideration, I am not satisfied that it will be unduly harsh for the children to remain in the UK if the appellant is deported. l have no reliable evidence that there will be a psychologically significant impact on the children if the appellant is deported. The letter from the school does not address that issue. It is too nebulous to draw any conclusions about the mental health of the children.
35. The children will be very upset but the appellant has been separated from his children before during his spells of imprisonment. I have no evidence that that has unduly affected them or their progress at school. They will have the support of their mother and her wider family. They will remain in education and have access to health care and their mother will have an entitlement to benefits.
36. I cannot find that paragraph 339 (a) (sc. 399 (a)) is met."
"44. As the exceptions to deportation are not applicable I have considered whether there are very compelling circumstances which mean the appellant should not be deported. I cannot find that there are. Having regard to the very significant public interest in the deportation of foreign criminals the appellant needs to provide evidence of a very strong Article 8 claim over and above the circumstances described in the exceptions to deportation. He has not done that.
45. The appeal is accordingly dismissed."
The decision of the Upper Tribunal
"15. Having properly accepted the concession that the appellant is a persistent offender and therefore a foreign criminal, the FTT was obliged to address each of the self-contained provisions within s. 117C. The FTT completed this task fully albeit with admirable brevity. The FIT considered in turn all the possible categories the appellant could potentially meet, by reference to s. 117C. The FTT addressed Exception 2 vis a vis the impact upon the children before turning to the impact upon the partner (s. 117C(5)). The FTT then turned to Exception 1 regarding the appellant's private life (s. 117C(4) before finally addressing whether there were any very compelling circumstances for the purposes of s. 117C(6)."
"16. It matters not that the appellant's offending fell at the lower end of the scale for the purposes of Exceptions 1 and 2 - see KO (supra). As a foreign criminal he could only succeed if he met the self-contained tests set out within s.117C. Mr Muman was unable to explain why the nature of the appellant's offending was relevant to the assessment of the Exceptions in s. 117C of the 2002 Act. Mr Muman made no reference to s. 117C(6). Although the seriousness of offending would be a relevant consideration when undertaking this more wide-ranging assessment, this was not relied upon. The reason for this is likely to be the absence of any evidence of very compelling circumstances over and above the Exceptions. When the FIT addressed this at [44], there is no reason to consider that it would not have taken into account all the evidence including its own findings at [32]."
"17. It is clear from reading the FTT's decision as a whole that the judge was fully aware of the evidence provided by the appellant and his partner. Their evidence is summarised in considerable detail at [6] to [20]. The FTT accepted that impact on the children would be "signi?cant" and they would be "very upset", but was entitled to find that there was no reliable evidence that there will be a "psychologically significant impact" upon them. When the decision is read as a whole, the following is tolerably clear:
- Although the FTT accepted that there would be a significant impact on the children, this did not reach the threshold of unduly harsh.
- Whilst the children's mother described some of the difficulties she and the children faced when the appellant was imprisoned, this was insufficient to meet the unduly harsh test.
- The FTT was not requiring expert evidence for the threshold to be met but did not regard the mother's own assessment of likely psychological damage to be reliable.
- The FTT considered the evidence from the children's headteacher in the form of a letter dated 20 May 2019 in which there is a summary of reports and concerns regarding the children from various sources. The FTT was entitled to regard this letter as nebulous. Although this described various issues of concern regarding the children, it also highlighted positive matters. In addition, the headteacher did not attribute any of the issues of concern to the appellant having been 'away' (when he was imprisoned). Indeed the reference to the eldest child indicating a desire to kill herself seems to have been a remark made in the aftermath of feeling left out by the other girls in her class and was not directly related to the appellant. Rather, she described being upset that her father had not walked her to school but had stayed in bed and that she did not see him very often.
18. I do not accept that the FTT applied a test that was too high. The test is a demanding one. The parents provided evidence that the children would be very upset. However, most children would be very upset to lose their father to another country. As KO emphasises, one is looking for a degree of harshness going beyond what would necessarily be involved for any child faced with the deportation of a parent. Although the parents asserted that there may be significant psychological damage, the FTT was entitled to find that to be unreliable. The letter from the school outlined incidents and concerns but in no cogent manner linked these to the appellant's absence.
19. There is no reason to believe that the FTT was unaware of the guidance in KO even though it was not specifically referred to. The FTT was well aware that family life between the appellant and his children would terminate but was entitled to find that the effect upon the children would not reach the high threshold required by the unduly harsh test."
The grounds of appeal
(1) The UT fell into error by failing to hold that the FTT applied an incorrect test under s. 117C(5) in determining whether the effect of the Appellant's deportation on the children and his partner would be unduly harsh. On the correct approach in law, the facts in this case demonstrate that undue harshness will result from the Appellant's deportation.
(2) The UT erred in its consideration of the FTT's approach under s. 117C(6). There is no requirement to demonstrate a very strong Article 8 claim over and above the circumstances described in the exceptions to deportation and it was wrong to describe the public interest in the Appellant's deportation as "very significant".
Relevant case-law on undue harshness
"23 On the other hand the expression "unduly harsh" seems clearly intended to introduce a higher hurdle than that of "reasonableness" under section 117B(6), taking account of the public interest in the deportation of foreign criminals. Further the word "unduly" implies an element of comparison. It assumes that there is a "due" level of "harshness", that is a level which may be acceptable or justifiable in the relevant context. "Unduly" implies something going beyond that level. The relevant context is that set by section 117C(1), that is the public interest in the deportation of foreign criminals. One is looking for a degree of harshness going beyond what would necessarily be involved for any child faced with the deportation of a parent. What it does not require in my view (and subject to the discussion of the cases in the next section) is a balancing of relative levels of severity of the parent's offence, other than is inherent in the distinction drawn by the section itself by reference to length of sentence…"
"51 … The underlying question for tribunals is whether the harshness which the deportation will cause for the partner and/or child is of a sufficiently elevated degree to outweigh that public interest in the deportation of foreign criminals."
"53 … It is inherent in the nature of an exercise of the kind required by section 117C(5) that Parliament intended that tribunals should in each case make an informed evaluative assessment of whether the effect of the deportation of the parent or partner on their child or partner would be "unduly harsh" in the context of the strong public interest in the deportation of foreign criminals; and further exposition of that phrase will never be of more than limited value."
"56 … if tribunals treat the essential question as being "is this level of harshness out of the ordinary?" they may be tempted to find that Exception 2 does not apply simply on the basis that the situation fits into some commonly-encountered pattern. That would be dangerous. How a child will be affected by a parent's deportation will depend on an almost infinitely variable range of circumstances and it is not possible to identify a baseline of "ordinariness". Simply by way of example, the degree of harshness of the impact may be affected by the child's age; by whether the parent lives with them (NB that a divorced or separated father may still have a genuine and subsisting relationship with a child who lives with the mother); by the degree of the child's emotional dependence on the parent; by the financial consequences of his deportation; by the availability of emotional and financial support from a remaining parent and other family members; by the practicability of maintaining a relationship with the deported parent; and of course by all the individual characteristics of the child.
57 … Tribunals considering the parent case under Exception 2 should not err in law if in each case they carefully evaluate the likely effect of the parent's deportation on the particular child and then decide whether that effect is not merely harsh but unduly harsh applying KO (Nigeria) in accordance with the guidance at paras 50—53 above."
Relevant case-law on very compelling circumstances
"32 … The decision-maker, be it the Secretary of State or a tribunal, must look at all the matters relied upon collectively, in order to determine whether they are sufficiently compelling to outweigh the high public interest in deportation.
33 Although there is no "exceptionality" requirement, it inexorably follows from the statutory scheme that the cases in which circumstances are sufficiently compelling to outweigh the high public interest in deportation will be rare. The commonplace incidents of family life, such as ageing parents in poor health or the natural love between parents and children, will not be sufficient.
34 The best interests of children certainly carry great weight, as identified by Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore JSC in H (H) v Deputy Prosecutor of the Italian Republic, Genoa (Official Solicitor intervening) [2013] 1 AC 338, para 145. Nevertheless, it is a consequence of criminal conduct that offenders may be separated from their children for many years, contrary to the best interests of those children. The desirability of children being with both parents is a commonplace of family life. That is not usually a sufficiently compelling circumstance to outweigh the high public interest in deporting foreign criminals."
The arguments on this appeal
Further evidence
Conclusion
Lord Justice Dingemans
Lady Justice Andrews