IA199122013 & IA199042013

The appellants are husband and wife, citizens of Iran, aged 79 and 69 at the time of the First-tier Tribunal hearing. Their appeals against removal were brought on the basis of their family and private life interests. By determination promulgated on 28 th January 2014 First-tier Tribunal Judge Hutchinson dismissed their appeals under the Immigration Rules and under Article 8 of the ECHR outwith the Rules.

The judge made a material error of law at paragraph 27 � by making the following finding:

I find that family life for the purposes of Article 8 does not exist. The appeal therefore fails.

While it was open to the judge to find that ties between adult appellants and their adult children did not go beyond normal emotional ties and did not establish family life for the purposes of Article 8 the judge erred by concluding that the appeal must therefore fail � Failure � to establish � family life cannot be equated to failure to establish � private life. The test for existence of private life is low: AG (Eritrea) [2007] EWCA Civ 801 �

The judge erred in law by failing to make findings on the existence of private life for the purposes of Article 8. The judge failed to give reasons why she did not consider there to be a private life. While the judge did express a view on the general Article 8 proportionality assessment, this was done in the alternative, and after the judge had already concluded that the appeal must fail as a consequence of her conclusion that family life did not exist.