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

A refusal notice under the immigration notice regulations is not invalid merely because a computer-generated notice sent by post bears no facsimile signature. The relevant question is whether the notice complies with the regulations’ requirements concerning writing and issue of the notice.

Where the refusal notice and reasons are sent together, they may be treated as one composite document. A signature is specifically required where service cannot be effected because the recipient’s details are unknown and the decision-maker records that fact on the file. That requirement does not extend to the ordinary case of a notice generated electronically and served by post.

The claimant sought judicial review of a refusal to vary his leave to remain. He contended that the operative refusal notice was a two-page computer-generated document dated 28 July 2008, sent without a signature, and was therefore invalid or a nullity under the Immigration Notices Regulations 2003.

The defendant maintained that the relevant material comprised four pages: the refusal notice followed by the reasons for refusal. The papers had previously been referred by Irwin J to an oral hearing so that factual issues concerning the documents could be considered. The central issues were whether the documents formed a composite notice and whether the regulations required a signature in an ordinary postal service case.

1. Permission refused. The claimant’s challenge failed on two independent grounds.
2. The material in the defendant’s bundle was properly construed as a four-page composite document. Pages 59 and 60 contained the refusal to vary leave, while pages 61 and 62 contained the reasons for issuing and serving that refusal. The first part promulgated the decision and the second gave the reasons. Both parts were dated 28 July 2008, and it was inferred that they were sent together in the same envelope and at the same time.
3. As the reasons for refusal were signed, the composite document satisfied the signature objection. The document was to be treated, for the purposes of the regulations, as signed.
4. In any event, even if only the unsigned, electronically generated two-page document had been sent, it would not have been a nullity. Regulation 7(3) of the Immigration Notices Regulations 2003 expressly requires a signature where the person to be served is unknown, service cannot be effected, and the decision-maker records the relevant circumstances and places the signed notice on the file.
5. That provision addressed a distinct situation from the ordinary case of a notice generated by an official’s computer and sent through the post. In the ordinary case, the regulations required writing and issue of the notice, but did not expressly require a signature. The debate about whether the document had contained a signature was therefore immaterial.
6. The claimant’s earlier notice of appeal also appeared to treat all four pages as a valid composite document. That was only a subsidiary point and did not determine the result. There was no order as to costs.

The judgment records that Irwin J referred the application to an oral hearing so that factual issues could be ventilated. Permission was then refused by the Administrative Court.