IA215212014 & Ors.

The Respondent refused the Appellants' applications for leave to remain on 23 April 2014. They were all required to leave the United Kingdom. They sought leave to remain as they are now "settled" here. Their appeals were dismissed by First-tier Tribunal Judge Freer ("the Judge") following a hearing on 3 July 2015.

Upper Tribunal Judge Rintoul granted permission to appeal (10 December 2015) on the ground that:

"It is arguable that FtTJ Freer erred in concluding [69] that it would be in the children's best interests to continue their education abroad. It may be arguable that this, and the consideration of the father being able to go to Dubai [71] and the apparent failure to consider the conditions in the country or countries to which the children could return also amounts to errors of law, given that these were taken into account is assessing proportionality.

In addition to the matters upon which permission to appeal was granted and which are referred to above [3], too much emphasis was placed on the previous determination (IA/35679/2011 etc) as that was only an Article 8 appeal whereas now the children have been here for more than 7 years and fall within the Immigration Rules. It was also a material error of law not to follow the guidance contained in PD and Others (Article 8 - conjoined family claims) Sri Lanka [2016] UKUT 108 (IAC) .

Mr Avery relied on the Rule 24 notice (18 January 2016) which in essence said that the Judge made adequate findings and considered the best interest of the children and there was no evidence they could not return to India or Pakistan. He added orally that the same test applies to paragraph 276 ADE of the Immigration Rules as to Article 8, namely is it reasonable to expect the children to leave the United Kingdom. Even if there was an error of law, it was not material. PD does not apply retrospectively.