RS (Uganda) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

In an Article 8 deportation case involving a young adult, the proportionality assessment is intensely fact-sensitive. The criteria identified in Maslov must be applied, but the factual outcome in that case is not a precedent for the outcome in another case.

A settled migrant who has lawfully spent all or most of childhood and youth in the host state requires very serious reasons for expulsion. Serious violent offending may supply such reasons, particularly where the offender has a limited period of lawful residence and continuing violent or criminal conduct. Family life between an adult child and relatives requires dependency or real, committed and effective support beyond ordinary emotional ties.

The appellant, a Ugandan national who arrived in the United Kingdom as a child, had indefinite leave to remain but committed a series of offences, including four robberies involving violence or its threat. The Secretary of State decided to deport him.

The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal dismissed his appeal. It found no Article 8 family life with his mother or siblings because the evidence disclosed no dependency beyond normal family ties. It also concluded that the public interest in deportation prevailed. On reconsideration, the Upper Tribunal held that any failure to address private life expressly was immaterial, since removal would in any event have been proportionate.

The appeal concerned whether the tribunals had erred in their findings on family life and in applying the Article 8 proportionality principles in Maslov.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. Etherton LJ held that the Upper Tribunal was entitled to find that the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal had made no error of law. Patten LJ and Rix LJ agreed.

2. The challenge to the finding that there was no Article 8 family life failed. The tribunal had considered all the evidence and was entitled to find that the appellant’s relationship with his mother and siblings did not disclose the dependency or effective support required beyond ordinary family ties. The Upper Tribunal had not treated the appellant’s gang associations as the sole reason for rejecting family life.

3. The Upper Tribunal had correctly approached proportionality under Article 8. The value of Maslov v Austria [2008] ECHR 546 lay in its legal guidance, not in a detailed factual comparison with later cases. The relevant criteria for a young adult included the nature and seriousness of offending, residence, conduct since the offence, and ties with the host and destination states. Their relative weight depended on the facts.

4. The appellant was materially different from the settled migrant in Maslov. He arrived at an older age, had been lawfully resident only for a short period before the deportation decision, and had committed four serious robberies of vulnerable victims on a train at night. The violent nature and gravity of those offences could amount to very serious reasons for deportation notwithstanding that he had offended as a juvenile.

5. Patten LJ stressed that Article 8 deportation cases are highly fact-sensitive and that Maslov does not determine whether removal is disproportionate on different facts. Rix LJ additionally noted the sentencing judge’s assessment of the robbery offences, later violence in detention, and the absence of evidence of changed attitude. Those matters reinforced the conclusion that deportation was proportionate.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Dismissed the appellant’s appeal from the Upper Tribunal: [2011] EWCA Civ 1749.

2. Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber): Senior Immigration Judge Lane dismissed the reconsideration appeal, holding that the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal had made no material error of law.

3. Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: Dismissed the appeal against the Secretary of State’s deportation decision.