IA012062013

For the Appellant: Mr E Akohene, Counsel, instructed by Afrifa and Partners Solicitors

The appellant is a citizen of Ghana who was born on 18 May 1978. She appeals against the determination of First-tier Tribunal Judge Woolf promulgated on 19 April 2013 dismissing her appeal against the decision of the Secretary of State to refuse her a residence card as confirming her right of residence in the United Kingdom as the spouse of an EEA national who is a qualified person in that he is exercising Treaty rights in the United Kingdom being himself a citizen of the Union.

�Since it is possible for Ghanaians living outside Ghana to obtain the proper certificates of marriage or divorce, authenticated by the Ghanaian High Commission, this should be requested in all cases where the marital status of an applicant is important. Statutory declarations made by a parent or other family elder of either party to an unregistered customary marriage should only be accepted where they complete a chain of otherwise first class documentary evidence of a claim to citizenship.�

�I accept that this is not a requirement of the 2006 Regulations and that failure to present certificates which have been authenticated by the Ghanaian High Commission is not fatal to the appellant�s case. It is nevertheless a course which the appellant and/or her representatives could not fail to be aware was open to her following the receipt of the reasons for refusal letter.�

I agree with those sentiments. It seems to me that once one is presented with a clear call to authenticate a document, that the authentication of that document is permissible and obtainable in the United Kingdom by approaching the Ghanaian High Commission, it is simply folly not to rely upon that process of authentication if one wishes in due course to have weight attached to a marriage certificate in circumstances where the authenticity of the marriage is brought into question.