Singh & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department

In a human-rights appeal concerning removal, the tribunal may assess whether removal materially interferes with the individual’s ability to manifest religion and with the activities of a religious organisation. Those are matters of judgment and assessment. Immigration control may properly be taken into account.

Human Rights Act 1998, section 13 adds nothing where Article 9 is not engaged, because the statutory reference to Convention rights concerns Article 9 rights. The court declined to determine the wider scope of a section 65 appeal where, even if the applicant’s argument were correct, it could not affect the result.

This was a renewed application for permission to appeal from an Immigration Appeal Tribunal determination. The applicant, who had lived in the United Kingdom for many years, relied on Articles 8 and 9 of the Convention in resisting removal to India. He argued that removal would interfere with his religious role and would seriously disrupt the activities of his Sikh temple and congregation.

The special adjudicator rejected the Article 8 claim but allowed the Article 9 claim. The Immigration Appeal Tribunal disagreed and concluded that removal would not cause sufficiently serious disruption to make it disproportionate. The central issues were whether Article 9 was engaged, whether section 13 of the Human Rights Act 1998 altered the assessment, and whether the reasoning in Bakhtaur Singh applied.

1. Application dismissed. Permission to appeal was refused.
2. The Immigration Appeal Tribunal was entitled to find that removal to India would not affect the applicant’s freedom to manifest his religion. It was also entitled to conclude that removal would not significantly interfere with the Sikh temple’s ability to conduct its activities. Those conclusions involved judgment and assessment on primary facts that had not been challenged. They were not perverse.
3. Article 9 permits the decision-maker to take account of the requirements of immigration control. Where Article 9 is not engaged, section 13 of the Human Rights Act 1998 adds nothing. The reference in section 13 to the Convention rights of persons concerned the Article 9 rights relied upon.
4. The court expressed considerable doubt whether matters outside Convention rights, including the wider considerations associated with Bakhtaur Singh and rule 364 of the Immigration Rules, were relevant in an appeal under section 65 of the Immigration and Asylum Act. It declined to decide that question because the tribunals had in substance considered the relevant circumstances.
5. The applicant’s family interests had been considered under Article 8, and the temple and congregation’s interests had been fully considered under Article 9. Even if the applicant’s wider legal argument were correct, there was no realistic prospect that it would alter the Immigration Appeal Tribunal’s decision.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): dismissed the renewed application for permission to appeal and refused permission.
• Immigration Appeal Tribunal: allowed the Secretary of State’s challenge to the special adjudicator’s Article 9 conclusion and found that removal was not disproportionate.
• Special adjudicator: rejected the Article 8 claim but accepted the Article 9 claim.