VA026682015 & VA026692015

Although this is an appeal by the Secretary of State on behalf of the Entry Clearance Officer, I shall refer to the parties as in the First-tier Tribunal. The Appellants are husband and wife and are citizens of Pakistan. Their appeals against the refusal of entry clearance as visitors was allowed by First-tier Tribunal Judge Lagunju in a decision promulgated on 19 th February 2016.

The First-tier Tribunal Judge found, on the basis of the evidence at the time of the decision, that the Appellants were genuine visitors who intended to return to Pakistan at the end of their stay. Contrary to the decision of the Respondent, the Appellants satisfied the Immigration Rules.

However, the Appellants' appeals were limited to Article 8 grounds under Section 84(1)(c) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. The judge quite rightly made findings in respect of the Immigration Rules since this was relevant to proportionality. Having concluded that the Rules were satisfied, the judge went on to assess the Article 8 claim and made the following findings.

The Respondent applied for permission to appeal on the ground that the judge erred in law in failing to consider whether Article 8 was engaged and had he done so he would have concluded that it was not. The Appellants had failed to establish family life because their relationship with their grandparents was not one where there was dependency more than normal emotional ties. The Respondent argues that the judge failed to have regard to Adeji (visit visas - Article 8) [2015] UKUT 261 (IAC) which states at paragraph 13:

"A person who satisfied the Tribunal that he does meet the requirements of para 41 of HC 395 does not succeed on that account. He still has to demonstrate that refusal represents an unlawful infringement of rights protected by Article 8 of the ECHR."