IA099572014 & ors

This is my extempore determination in respect of the error of law hearing that has taken place before me today. The appellants in this case are Mr ID (the father), Ms LD (the mother) and finally Miss JD (their child currently aged 14). The matter comes before me pursuant to a grant of permission to appeal by Upper Tribunal Judge McWilliams dated 27 April 2015 when she had considered the matter on the papers.

The original decision now on appeal is that of First-tier Tribunal Judge Wilson dated 5 November 2014. He had dismissed the appellants' appeals against the Respondent's decisions to remove them all from the United Kingdom. There were three grounds of appeal. They are summarised in the skeleton argument relied upon by the Appellants, helpfully prepared by Miss Revill in respect of this case.

It is clear to me that the real focus of this case is in respect of the third Appellant, i.e. the child. I accept of course that Judge Wilson did not have to refer specificlay to case law or even to statute. In fact he referred specifically to Azimi-Moayed and to EV (Philippines) along with other authorities.

The ground of appeal in reality comes to this: that the judge focused too readily on the ability of this family to stay united as a family for the third Appellant, a 14 year old girl, to be able to return to Nigeria where she has not been for a very long time. That time being in the region of some eleven years or so. Questions in relation to the reasonableness or whether it would be unduly harsh or even possible for the child to return required greater analysis and the Court of Appeal's decision in EV (Philippines) is relied upon by the Appellant.

In this case I can well understand the judge's concerns in respect of the parents' very poor immigration histories and indeed the limited ambit of their private and perhaps family life arguments but the case was put in a very different context because of the child.