OA022202013

The Respondent appeals to the Upper Tribunal, with permission, against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Judge Fletcher-Hill) promulgated on 17th January 2014 by which it allowed the Appellant�s appeal against the Entry Clearance Officer�s decision to refuse him entry clearance as a spouse.

Although the Entry Clearance Officer is the Appellant before the Upper Tribunal, I will continue to refer to the Entry Clearance Officer as the Respondent and Mr Rubel as the Appellant for the sake of clarity and continuity.

As the application was made on 8th July 2012 the application fell to be considered under paragraph 281 of the Immigration Rules, namely before the increased maintenance requirements..

By the time the matter came before the First-tier Tribunal the only matters in issue were whether the marriage was genuine and subsisting and whether the parties could be maintained adequately without recourse to public funds.

The Judge recorded that the Sponsor gave evidence that they had kept in contact for five years by telephone and Skype using a web cam. She did not have documentary evidence of this, although to be fair it would be difficult to provide such evidence. She explained that the Sponsor used phone cards because that was the most economic way to call Bangladesh. She explained how she had met her husband. The Judge noted that the telephone records that had been produced post-dated the decision. It is recorded that there was no photographic evidence or documentary evidence of the relationship.