Ms F, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

A concessionary immigration policy is not irrational merely because its bright-line criteria produce anomalies or benefit some applicants with weaker claims than others outside the policy. The Secretary of State may pursue several legitimate objectives, including administrative simplicity, certainty, cost saving and efficient resolution of an asylum backlog. Such a policy operates within the wider immigration system and need not provide a comprehensive assessment of every compassionate case or determine every person’s Article 8 rights. A relatively wide margin of discretion applies when the Executive designs criteria of this kind. The availability of other routes, including an individual Article 8 claim or exceptional discretionary leave, is relevant to the rationality assessment.

The claimant, a Colombian national, challenged the Secretary of State’s refusal to grant her leave under a concessionary policy for certain asylum-seeking families who had applied before 2 October 2000 and included a dependent child under 18 on a specified date.

Her son had turned 18 before 2 October 2000, although the family had lived together in the United Kingdom for many years. She argued that excluding her was irrational because families with children who had turned 18 later could qualify, despite having weaker or shorter ties to the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State relied on the policy’s administrative, economic and social objectives and on AL (Serbia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] EWCA Civ 1619.

1. The claim was dismissed. The policy’s exclusion of the claimant was not irrational.
2. The fact that a policy produces anomalies does not establish irrationality. A policy of this kind necessarily requires limits concerning eligibility dates, family status and the relevant date for assessing dependency. It would be practically impossible to devise simple criteria that produced no anomalies.
3. The Secretary of State was entitled to pursue multiple objectives. These included reducing the asylum backlog and associated public expenditure, avoiding further applications and delay within families, facilitating removals, and recognising the social ties formed by families settled in the United Kingdom. Certainty, administrative effectiveness and simplicity were valid considerations.
4. The reasoning in AL (Serbia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] EWCA Civ 1619, including the recognition that such policies are blunt instruments and that the Executive should receive a relatively wide margin of discretion, supported that conclusion.
5. The policy was a concession operating within the wider immigration system, not a comprehensive charter of rights. It was not intended to identify every person with a compassionate case or to ensure that every beneficiary had a stronger claim than every excluded person. The claimant retained other possible avenues, including an Article 8 claim under the wider immigration system and an application for exceptional discretionary leave. The policy therefore did not necessarily create an Article 8 violation or an irrational inconsistency.