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

Where the Home Office receives a properly authorised notification that an applicant has appointed or changed a representative, its published policy requires it to accept the notification and update its records. If the requirements are not met, it must inform both the applicant and the proposed representative.

Article 8ZA of the Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) Order 2000, read with that policy, normally requires written notice to be served on an accepted representative. Before electing instead to serve the applicant, the Home Office must take account of the accepted notification. Failure to consider that plainly material matter renders the resulting curtailment decision unlawful.

The applicant had made an application for further leave to remain. His solicitors notified the Home Office that they acted for him, enclosing a signed authority. The Home Office recorded the notification but sent a later decision curtailing his leave to his former address, rather than to the solicitors.

He sought judicial review of, among other matters, the curtailment decision of 17 March 2015. Permission was confined to that challenge. The central issue was whether service was lawful under Article 8ZA of the Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) Order 2000 and the Home Office policy governing notification of representation.

1. The application for judicial review was granted. The Tribunal quashed the curtailment decision of 17 March 2015.

2. The published policy imposed mandatory obligations where an applicant notified the Home Office of a representative. If written authority and proper regulation of the representative were established, the caseworker had to accept the notification and update the internal record. If not, the applicant and representative had to be told that it had been rejected.

3. Article 8ZA of the Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) Order 2000 provides several methods for giving written notice. Construed with the policy, it normally required notice to be served on an accepted representative. This reflected common sense, practical reality, legal certainty and good administration.

4. Where the Home Office contemplated serving the applicant rather than the accepted representative, it had to consider the notification and its acceptance. That was an undeniably material factor. The Tribunal also applied the public-law principle stated in Lumba v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] UKSC 12: an individual is entitled to have their case considered under the executive's lawful published policy.

5. The solicitors' notification and authority, the immediate update of Home Office records, and the absence of any communicated rejection established that the notification had been accepted. The notification was apparently overlooked when the curtailment notice was sent. The decision was therefore not lawfully served and was vitiated. Liberty to apply was granted, and the respondent was ordered to pay the applicant's reasonable costs.

• Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber): Permission for judicial review was granted on 21 November 2016, limited to the challenge to the curtailment decision of 17 March 2015. The Tribunal allowed the application and quashed that decision.