Tajamal Hazoor Randhawa v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

An extended family member within Article 3(2) of Directive 2004/38/EC has no EU-law right to enter or reside in the United Kingdom. Residence depends on facilitation under domestic law.

A residence card issued by another member state does not itself create a United Kingdom right of admission. Article 5(2) is procedural only. Nor do regulations 11 or 29 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 confer an unexpressed domestic discretion to admit an extended family member.

Whether residence was facilitated for Article 10(2) of the Withdrawal Agreement turns objectively on the immigration officer’s act. Unstamped admission based on a mistaken belief in an EU-law right did not amount to domestic-law facilitation. Article 18(1)(l)(iv) also permits a requirement for properly documented evidence of a United Kingdom grant of residence.

Tajamal Hazoor Randhawa, a Pakistani national, claimed to be financially dependent on his Italian-national brother. Italy had issued him with a residence card of a family member of a Union citizen. On arrival in the United Kingdom in December 2019, he showed that card and his passport to an immigration officer, who scanned the passports and said that he could go. No passport stamp or other document was issued.

His fourth application for pre-settled status under the EUSS was refused. The First-tier Tribunal allowed his appeal, but the Upper Tribunal set that decision aside and re-made it by dismissing the appeal. The Court of Appeal considered whether the border officer had facilitated his residence under domestic law for Article 10(2) of the Withdrawal Agreement and, if so, whether Article 18(1)(l)(iv) entitled him to rely on his Italian residence card.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Upper Tribunal reached the correct result, although its first four reasons were wrong. Mr Randhawa did not qualify for pre-settled status because his residence in the United Kingdom had not been facilitated in accordance with domestic law.

2. Mr Randhawa was an “other family member” under Article 3(2) of Directive 2004/38/EC, rather than a family member within Article 2(2). Such a person derives no EU-law right of entry or residence. An Article 10 residence card issued by Italy evidenced a domestic Italian right of residence; it did not confer a right to enter or live in the United Kingdom.

3. Article 5(2) of the Directive concerns documentary procedure and exemption from an entry-visa requirement. It does not itself confer a right of entry: see Kaur v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 98. Regulation 11 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 specified those with a right of admission and created no wider implied discretion. Regulation 29 was procedural only. It applied provisions of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971 to persons claiming admission; it did not grant a substantive right or power of admission.

4. Objectively, the officer allowed Mr Randhawa through because he mistakenly believed that the Italian card gave him an EU-law right of entry. Nothing showed that the officer took a domestic-law decision to facilitate residence. The case was materially different from Vasa and Hasanaj v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] 1 WLR 39, where express passport stamps recording admission under the Regulations evidenced such a decision.

5. Although unnecessary to the result, Article 18(1)(l)(iv) legitimately permits the United Kingdom to require properly documented evidence of a domestic grant of residence. An oral statement that a traveller could proceed was not such evidence, and it could not convert an Italian residence card into a document issued by a United Kingdom authority.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): dismissed the appeal in Tajamal Hazoor Randhawa v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWCA Civ 1008 , while rejecting four of the Upper Tribunal’s reasons.

• Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber): allowed the Secretary of State’s appeal, set aside the First-tier Tribunal’s decision for error of law, and re-made the decision by dismissing the appeal.

• First-tier Tribunal: allowed the appeal against refusal of pre-settled status on 1 July 2022.