Qureshi v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Where the court has jurisdiction to add a party, an exceptional joinder application may be resolved pragmatically and fairly without deciding the applicant’s precise formal legal interest. Relevant considerations include the respondent’s position, whether the applicant was already identified in the proceedings, the extent of the applicant’s involvement, and whether joinder will ensure that the applicant is bound by or can benefit from the outcome. The court may grant joinder where analysing the underlying legal interest would serve little practical purpose.

Mr Qureshi’s appeal was pending in the Court of Appeal from the Upper Tribunal (Immigration & Asylum Chamber). His wife, Mrs Shakoor, applied to be joined as a party, principally because she believed that circumstances might give her a legal interest capable of supporting a future damages claim.

Singh LJ had refused the application on the papers, while recognising that the court had jurisdiction to make the order. The central issue was whether Mrs Shakoor should nevertheless be joined in the particular circumstances of the appeal.

1. Application granted. Mrs Shakoor was joined as a second appellant.
2. The court had jurisdiction to make the order. Underhill LJ did not determine whether Mrs Shakoor had a formal legal interest in the appeal, or whether such an interest would support a damages claim. That analysis was unnecessary to the practical decision on joinder.
3. The appropriate approach was pragmatic and fair. The court took account of the respondent’s express lack of objection; the fact that Mrs Shakoor had been formally nominated as an interested party in the original claim form; and the fact that she was not seeking to enter the proceedings for the first time on appeal.
4. It was also relevant that Mrs Shakoor felt closely involved in the proceedings. Joinder would ensure that she was equally bound by the outcome or could take advantage of it, depending on the result.
5. Although exceptional, joinder was the sensible course in the circumstances. The court office was directed to draw up the order because Mrs Shakoor was a litigant in person.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Underhill LJ granted Mrs Shakoor’s application and ordered that she be joined as a second appellant.
• Upper Tribunal (Immigration & Asylum Chamber): The appeal arose from proceedings before the Tribunal; the decision under appeal is not otherwise cited in the judgment.