Begum v Secretary of State for the Home Department

Where a claimant challenges refusal of entry clearance on the basis that it prevents participation in a related appeal, the court must identify the legal consequence said to follow from that inability. An assumption that the related appeal must automatically succeed, or that entry clearance must necessarily be granted, is not correct merely because a fair and effective appeal may be unavailable. The court may therefore dismiss judicial review without deciding an alternative irrationality challenge where the claimant’s case depends on that erroneous assumption.

The claimant sought judicial review of the Secretary of State’s refusal on 14 June 2019 to grant entry clearance. The application was made alongside appeals before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission concerning the claimant’s deprivation of citizenship and the refusal of entry clearance.

The claimant argued that she had a constitutional right of access to the court, that the refusal interfered with that right, and that her statutory appeal could not be fair and effective unless she could participate in it. She contended that, if participation were impossible, either the deprivation appeal or the entry-clearance appeal should succeed.

1. Permission and disposition. Following a rolled-up hearing, permission to apply for judicial review was granted, but the application was dismissed.
2. The claimant’s case depended on the assumption that inability to have a fair and effective appeal necessarily required either the deprivation appeal to be allowed or entry clearance to be granted. That assumption was incorrect. The remedies sought did not automatically follow from the asserted inability to participate in the appeal.
3. The court adopted the relevant factual background and reasoning on the preliminary issues from the Commission’s open judgment, but the present application was disposed of by rejecting the claimant’s central assumption.
4. Because that conclusion disposed of the application, the court did not determine whether the Secretary of State had acted irrationally by insisting that the claimant provide biometric data before considering her entry-clearance application.