AM (Somalia) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

An adjournment to obtain an OASys report is not required in every deportation appeal. The question is whether refusal was unfair, assessed in context and on the likely materiality of the missing evidence. A risk assessment and other evidence may justify proceeding where there is no realistic prospect that the report would assist. Social and cultural integration is a qualitative, present-tense assessment. Persistent serious offending and loss of family and social ties may break earlier integration, although imprisonment does not automatically do so. Article 8 appeals require an independent and holistic proportionality assessment. The Immigration Rules guide but do not determine it. Parliament’s and the Secretary of State’s public-interest assessments receive appropriate weight, and very compelling circumstances are generally required outside the Rules’ exceptions.

AM, a Somali refugee who had lived in the United Kingdom since childhood, challenged decisions to revoke his refugee status and deport him after a two-year sentence for robbery. The First-tier Tribunal dismissed his appeal, refusing an adjournment to obtain the full OASys report and finding that he was not socially and culturally integrated in the United Kingdom. The Upper Tribunal dismissed his appeal on 12 July 2016. The Court of Appeal considered whether the refusal of an adjournment was procedurally unfair and whether the tribunals had properly applied the social and cultural integration requirement and conducted the Article 8 assessment.

The appeal was dismissed unanimously.

1. Adjournment and procedural fairness. Whether refusal of an adjournment was unfair was a question of law: SH (Afghanistan) v SSHD [2011] EWCA Civ 1284. There was no general requirement to obtain an OASys report before assessing whether an offender represented a danger to the community. The issue was fact-sensitive. The risk assessment, sentencing material and later OASys information showed no realistic prospect that the full report would support AM’s case. The report would in any event have had no effect on reliance upon the Refugee Convention exception because AM’s refugee status had been revoked and that revocation was not under appeal. The Secretary of State’s failure to comply with the disclosure direction was unsatisfactory, but it did not make the hearing unfair. Gloster LJ considered that AM had also complained too late; Males LJ did not rely on that point, stressing that disclosure was the Secretary of State’s responsibility.
2. Social and cultural integration. The requirement in paragraph 399A of the Immigration Rules and section 117C of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 was qualitative and concerned whether the person was integrated at the relevant time, not merely whether he had once been integrated. A person may lose the continuity of earlier integration. AM’s persistent drink-related criminality, racially aggravated offending, assault on a police officer, absence of family contact, lack of social ties, homelessness and unemployment entitled the tribunals to find that his integration had been broken. Time in prison did not automatically produce that result, but it was relevant in the context of the evidence. The approach was consistent with SSHD v Bossade [2015] UKUT 415 (IAC) and Akinyemi v SSHD [2017] EWCA Civ 236.
3. Article 8. The tribunals were required to make their own holistic proportionality assessment. The Rules were a starting point, not a complete code or a dispositive answer. They were nevertheless relevant, and appropriate weight had to be given to Parliament’s and the Secretary of State’s assessment of the public interest in deportation. Applying Hesham Ali [2016] UKSC 60, the First-tier Tribunal had carried out the required balancing exercise. AM also failed independently to establish very significant obstacles to integration in Somaliland. Even assuming that he satisfied the integration requirement, his Article 8 claim was not sufficiently strong to outweigh the public interest in deportation.

The appeal was dismissed.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division) In [2019] EWCA Civ 774, the court dismissed AM’s appeal.
2. Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) On 12 July 2016, the Upper Tribunal dismissed AM’s appeal against the First-tier Tribunal’s decision.
3. First-tier Tribunal On 29 January 2016, the First-tier Tribunal dismissed AM’s appeal against the Secretary of State’s decisions to revoke his refugee status and make a deportation order.