VA006952014

This is an appeal by the Secretary of State against the determination of First-tier Tribunal Judge Keane in which he allowed the appeal of Mr Kassa, a citizen of Ethiopia, against the Entry Clearance Officer�s decision to refuse to grant leave to enter as a family visitor. I shall refer to Mr Kassa as the Applicant, although he was the Appellant in the proceedings below.

The Applicant applied for entry clearance as a family visitor on 22 October 2013. His application was refused on 20 December 2013 . The Applicant exercised his right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. This is the appeal which came before Judge Keane on 5 December 2014 and was allowed by virtue of Article 8 ECHR. The Secretary of State applied for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal. The application was granted by First-tier Tribunal Judge Pirotta on 13 February 2015 in the following terms

�The grounds of the Application were that the IJ had failed to identify the correct basis of the appeal, made a material error on the ambit of � 41 of the Immigration Rules where the right to appeal was limited by s.84 (1) (c) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. The IJ had used Article 8 as a general dispensing power to override the criteria of the Immigration Rules and limitation on the right of appeal.

The Determination discloses an arguable material error of law. There is merit to the application.�

At the hearing before me Mr Mills appeared to represent the Secretary of State and Mr McGarvey represented the Applicant and submitted a written skeleton argument. A section 24 response was filed by the Applicant dated 21 May 2015.