CG (Jamaica) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Under the deportation rules then in force, the Immigration Rules provided a complete code for assessing an Article 8 deportation claim. A tribunal could not treat the Rules as deficient and conduct a free-standing assessment outside them.

The former requirement that a person under 25 have no ties with the receiving country required a rounded assessment of all relevant circumstances. It excluded merely remote or abstract links, but could involve evaluation. Its application was sensitive to age and was not confined to the availability of support on return.

Where the tribunal had made no clear finding on that issue and the evidence did not compel one conclusion, the issue required a proper rehearing.

CG, a Jamaican national who had lived in the United Kingdom from the age of seven, had indefinite leave to remain. After repeated offending, including drug-supply offences committed while he was a minor, the Secretary of State decided to deport him on the ground that deportation was conducive to the public good.

The First-tier Tribunal allowed his Article 8 appeal. The Upper Tribunal upheld that result, despite accepting that the First-tier Tribunal had not considered the new deportation rules. It held, among other matters, that CG had no ties with Jamaica under paragraph 399A(b).

The Secretary of State appealed. The central issues were whether the Rules were a complete code and whether the Upper Tribunal could properly infer that CG had no ties with Jamaica without a rehearing.

1. Appeal allowed and case remitted. The First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal erred by failing to treat the then applicable Immigration Rules as a complete code for Article 8 deportation claims. Under MF (Nigeria) [2013] EWCA Civ 1192, the exceptional-circumstances exercise was the proportionality exercise required by Article 8; it was not an invitation to decide the case outside the Rules.

2. The respondent fell within paragraph 398(c). The decisive initial question was therefore whether paragraph 399 or 399A applied. The Upper Tribunal was wrong to treat the Rules as failing to reflect Article 8 principles concerning youth or the quality of connections with the receiving state. Those propositions could not stand once the complete-code approach was applied.

3. The former paragraph 399A(b) required a person under 25 to have no social, cultural or family ties with the receiving country. Applying Ogundimu [2013] UKUT 00060, the court held that ties meant more than remote or abstract links and required a rounded assessment of all relevant circumstances. The inquiry could be evaluative, as recognised in MF (Nigeria). The meaning of ties was not static: a younger person might more readily show an absence of ties. Although potential support on return might be relevant, YM (Uganda) [2014] EWCA Civ 1292 did not make support a defining qualification of a tie.

4. Neither tribunal had made a clear finding directed to paragraph 399A(b). The Upper Tribunal heard no live evidence, and the material did not compel a conclusion that CG had no ties with Jamaica. Its finding could therefore not stand. The issue required a rehearing.

5. The remitted case was to be determined under the rules introduced on 10 July 2014. Those amendments required very compelling circumstances beyond those described in paragraphs 399 and 399A, and replaced the former no-ties criterion with requirements concerning lawful residence, social and cultural integration, and very significant obstacles to integration abroad.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — allowed the Secretary of State’s appeal and remitted the matter to the Upper Tribunal: [2015] EWCA Civ 194.
• Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) — decision promulgated on 13 May 2013 upheld the First-tier Tribunal’s decision, notwithstanding the First-tier Tribunal’s failure to address the new Immigration Rules.
• First-tier Tribunal — determination dated 29 October 2012 allowed CG’s appeal against the Secretary of State’s deportation decision.