Mehmood Ahmed Raja, R (on the application of) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

A decision letter must be read as a whole to identify which earlier decisions it reconsiders. A supplemental decision which expressly confines itself to an Article 8 assessment does not reopen a prior long-residence decision.

An adult child’s eighteenth birthday is not a bright line ending family life for Article 8 purposes. The decision-maker must address relevant evidence about whether family life continues, whether a family member can safely and reasonably relocate, and whether refusal would produce unjustifiably harsh consequences when all relevant circumstances are assessed cumulatively.

A person has no general entitlement to require the Secretary of State to make a removal decision or explain why none has been made.

The applicant, a Pakistani national, challenged decisions refusing leave to remain based on long residence and Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. An earlier judicial-review claim concerning the first refusal had been withdrawn by consent after the Secretary of State agreed to reconsider specified applications under the Immigration Rules in force on 22 August 2011.

The second decision maintained the refusal. A third, supplemental decision reconsidered the Article 8 claim under Appendix FM, paragraph 276ADE and guidance concerning exceptional circumstances outside the Rules. The applicant contended that the long-residence evidence had been overlooked, that the consent order required the former Article 8 approach, and that relevant evidence concerning his partner, her adult son and his medical condition had not been considered.

1. The claim succeeded in part. The third decision was quashed insofar as it assessed the case under Appendix FM and the guidance concerning Article 8 outside the Immigration Rules. The remaining grounds were rejected.
2. The third decision did not reopen the long-residence decision. Read as a whole, it maintained the conclusions on long residence and unmarried-partner requirements, while reconsidering only Article 8. The later evidence was not before the Secretary of State when the second decision was made. In any event, the material identified did not establish continuous residence from August 1997, as required for the claimed fourteen-year period.
3. The consent order did not include an undertaking to reconsider Article 8. It did not mention Article 8, although it specified the Immigration Rules to be applied to the identified applications. Before 9 July 2012, Article 8 claims were considered outside the Rules. The applicant had compromised his challenge to the first Article 8 decision, so there was no extant Article 8 application to which the transitional approach in Edgehill v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 402 could apply.
4. The Article 8 assessment was nevertheless unlawful. The decision-maker failed to address the partner’s witness evidence explaining why relocation to Pakistan would be unsafe or unreasonable. It also treated age 18 as a bright line beyond which family life with her son could not exist. If that family life existed, the decision-maker had to consider whether it was reasonable for him to live in Pakistan. Those errors could affect the Appendix FM assessment and the cumulative assessment of exceptional circumstances outside the Rules.
5. The Secretary of State was not obliged to make a removal decision of her own volition. In the absence of a request under the Removal Decisions Policy, she had no duty to make such a decision or give reasons for not doing so, applying Daley Murdock v SSHD [2011] EWCA Civ 161.

• Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber): judicial-review claim allowed in part. The third decision was quashed only insofar as it assessed the case under Appendix FM and guidance outside the Immigration Rules.
• Administrative Court: an earlier judicial-review claim challenging the first decision was withdrawn by consent. The consent order required reconsideration of specified Immigration Rules applications but did not require reconsideration of Article 8.