Uba v Secretary of State for the Home Department

The Secretary of State has a broad power to exclude a foreign national where presence in the United Kingdom is considered not conducive to the public good. Judicial review remains available, but the court should apply the ordinary principles of rationality, legality, procedural regularity and, where relevant, proportionality with appropriate restraint.

The Secretary of State need not prove a criminal conviction before relying on sound information indicating involvement in serious criminal activity. In exclusion cases, reasons need not disclose sensitive intelligence or meet the detailed standard applicable in other public-law contexts, provided the basis of the decision is sufficiently clear and legitimate reasons justify withholding further material.

The claimant, a Nigerian national and businessman, challenged the Secretary of State’s July 2012 decision to maintain a 2008 direction excluding him from the United Kingdom on the ground that his presence was not conducive to the public good because of his character, conduct and association with fraud and other criminal activities.

He alleged that the review failed properly to consider his representations, amounted to a rubber-stamping of the earlier decision, and was inadequately reasoned. The Secretary of State relied on sensitive intelligence, other evidence, and witness statements explaining the review process and the reasons for withholding material.

1. The claim was dismissed. The 2012 review was a fresh decision capable in principle of challenge and was not an abuse of process.
2. The Secretary of State had properly considered the claimant’s further representations and evidence. Political office, philanthropy and the absence of criminal convictions did not prevent her from reaching her own assessment on the evidence. She was entitled to rely on sound information concerning serious criminal activity even where it had not resulted in prosecution.
3. The power to exclude on conducive-to-the-public-good grounds is broad, and the court should be slow to interfere. The applicable review remains based on rationality, legality and procedural regularity and, where Convention rights arise, proportionality. The assessment is an executive judgment, and the decision-maker may act preventively on reliable information rather than await directly harmful activity.
4. The reasons given in the letter were sufficient in the particular context. Although more detail would ordinarily assist a person to understand why a decision had been made and to challenge it, exclusion decisions may require a guarded approach where disclosure could compromise intelligence sources, operations or the public interest.
5. The Secretary of State was not required to disclose the sensitive material, even in summary form, where legitimate public-interest grounds justified withholding it. Disclosure under the Data Protection Act 1998, together with detailed witness statements explaining the decision-making and the evidential basis, fulfilled her legal obligations in this case.
6. In any event, the reasons challenge had become academic because there was nothing further the Secretary of State could properly disclose or add. The judicial review claim was therefore dismissed.