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

An immigration decision on the "no ties" requirement in paragraph 276ADE(vi) must demonstrate that the decision-maker has considered the salient evidence and tested it against the Rule. A brief decision may suffice, but it must disclose an individual and lawful assessment of the applicant’s circumstances.

The duty under Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, section 55 is intensely fact-sensitive. Consideration of the Immigration Rules will not normally, without more, establish compliance. The child’s best interests must be treated as a primary consideration through a careful examination of all relevant factors.

The applicants were an Indian married couple and their UK-born child. They sought judicial review of the Secretary of State’s decisions of 23 October 2013 refusing leave to remain.

The Secretary of State later made a supplemental decision on 11 February 2015. It considered leave outside the Immigration Rules, Article 8 and the welfare of the child under section 55, but the applicants did not amend their claim to challenge that decision separately.

The principal issues were whether the 2013 decisions lawfully considered paragraph 276ADE(vi) of the Immigration Rules and whether the Secretary of State lawfully discharged her duties under Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, section 55.

1. The claims for judicial review succeeded. The Upper Tribunal quashed the decisions of 23 October 2013. It made no order quashing the supplemental decision of 11 February 2015 because no such order was sought.

2. Paragraph 276ADE(vi) required a rounded assessment of whether the adult applicants had no ties with India. The expression required more than remote or abstract links. It required consideration of any continued connection with life in that country, extending beyond social, cultural and family circumstances.

3. The decision concerning the first applicant was unlawful. His statement contained evidence directly relevant to whether he had retained ties with India, but the decision merely asserted that there was no evidence to the contrary. A short decision need not address every point, but it must show that the salient evidence was considered and tested against the Rule.

4. The second applicant was entitled to an individual assessment. Her decision did not consider paragraph 276ADE, and the reasoning in the first applicant’s decision could not validly be read across to her. The child’s decision was consequently also unlawful because it partly relied on the parents’ failure to meet the Rules.

5. The 2015 decision could not render those errors academic because, on the private-life issue, it merely adopted the unlawful 2013 reasoning. The claims were not inevitably bound to fail on reconsideration.

6. Although the section 55 issue was academic in light of that conclusion, the Tribunal held that the 2013 decisions also failed to lawfully address the duty. The child’s best interests were a primary consideration, and compliance required a careful, fact-sensitive examination. A lawful consideration of the Rules was essential on these facts; the 2015 decision could not cure the section 55 defect because its consideration under the Rules was itself unlawful.

• Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber): On judicial review, quashed the Secretary of State’s decisions of 23 October 2013 refusing leave to remain. The supplemental decision of 11 February 2015 was not quashed because it was not separately challenged.