GD (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

For an appeal from the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, the period for filing an appellant’s notice runs from service of written notice that permission to appeal has been granted or refused. A later correction of a clerical error in the permission notice does not restart time. The special practice direction for asylum and immigration appeals governs instead of the general time limit in the Civil Procedure Rules 1998. Rule 60(3) of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal Procedure Rules 2005 concerns applications for permission to appeal against, or reviews of, amended determinations. It does not apply to an appeal against the tribunal’s determination. An extension requires good reason and may be refused where remittal would almost certainly be futile.

The claimant, a Zimbabwean national, succeeded before an adjudicator in February 2005 on refugee and human-rights grounds. The Secretary of State sought to challenge findings concerning the risk arising from the claimant’s MDC activities in the United Kingdom.

The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal dismissed the challenge in November 2005. It declined to hear the drafted grounds and relied instead on country-guidance decisions, including [2005] UKIAT 00144. Permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal was granted in March 2006, but further documents were issued to correct confusion over the parties. The appellant’s notice was filed on 18 January 2007. The central issues were whether it was in time, whether time should be extended, and whether any error by the tribunal required remittal.

Lord Justice Sedley gave the leading judgment. Lord Justice Hughes and Lord Justice Ward agreed with his reasoning, and the appeal was unanimously dismissed.

1. The general provision in the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 was supplemented by PD 52, 21.7(3), which specifically governs appeals from the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal. The appellant’s notice had to be filed within 14 days after service of written notice of the tribunal’s decision to grant or refuse permission. Time therefore began when the Secretary of State received the March 2006 notice, and expired in early April.
2. The later October and December documents corrected clerical confusion about the parties. They did not supersede the original grant of permission or restart the time for appealing. Rule 60(3) of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal Procedure Rules 2005 concerned time for applying for permission to appeal against, or seeking review of, an amended determination. It did not apply because the appeal was against the tribunal’s determination, not against the grant of permission. The slip-rule correction operated from the date of the original order.
3. No good reason justified extending time. The possibility that related Zimbabwe cases might have been held pending the AA litigation was not a sufficient general explanation. Any mistaken belief about the effect of the amended order arose only after the Secretary of State was already substantially out of time, and the original permission notice and subsequent correspondence had been ignored.
4. In any event, the court would not act in vain. The tribunal had wrongly relied on the superseded country-guidance decision AA (Involuntary Return to Zimbabwe) CG [2005] UKIAT 00144, so the principal merits ground would have succeeded if the appeal had proceeded. However, the adjudicator’s careful assessment, grounded in background evidence and the relevant country-guidance decision FM [2003] UKIAT 00163, was highly unlikely to constitute speculation or a material error of law.

The appeal was dismissed because the appellant’s notice was out of time and no extension was warranted.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal was dismissed on 7 June 2007 because the appellant’s notice was out of time and no extension was justified.
• Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: The tribunal dismissed the Secretary of State’s appeal in November 2005, but declined to hear the drafted grounds and relied on superseded country guidance.
• Adjudicator: In February 2005, the adjudicator allowed the claimant’s protection claim on refugee and human-rights grounds.