IA266892013 & ors

The Respondents are all nationals of India. They are respectively a husband, wife and their minor child. On the 19 th November 2013 the First-tier Tribunal (Judge Heynes) allowed their linked appeals against the Secretary of State�s decision to refuse to vary their leave to remain and to remove them from the United Kingdom pursuant to s47 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006.

The applications were refused because Mr Jani had failed to supply specified evidence of his self-employment as required by Appendix A of the Rules. He had submitted accounts but they were not prepared by an accountant registered with one of the approved supervisory bodies (ie ACCA etc).

The Secretary of State now has permission to appeal on the grounds that Judge Heynes failed to take the decision in Nagre [1] into account. It is submitted that there was a misdirection in law in that the determination fails to take into account the weight to be attached to the Immigration Rules. MF Nigeria [2] is relied upon to support the proposition that the Rules are a �complete code� as far as Article 8 is concerned and that the appeal could only therefore have been allowed if the Tribunal had identified some �exceptional circumstances�.

In respect of the ground asserting that MF (Nigeria) finds the rules as a whole to be a complete code this is simply wrong. MF (Nigeria) was concerned with those provisions relating to deportation, not private life in general. I do not consider there to be any error of law in the approach taken by Judge Heynes.

Even if I am wrong I note that at the date of the appeal before me the First Respondent has had lawful leave to remain in this country for over ten years and now qualifies for indefinite leave to remain in any event. As such any error that might be found in the determination is irrelevant.