EA004132019

This is an appeal to the Upper Tribunal, with permission, by the Appellant in relation to a Decision and Reasons of Judge Fowell in the First-tier Tribunal, promulgated on 25 June 2019.

The appellant is a citizen of Pakistan, born on 23 October 1986. She had appealed a decision of the Secretary of State, taken on 14 January 2019, to refuse her application for permanent residence under the EEA Regulations.

The appellant had made an application under regulation 15(1)(f) on the basis that, being a person with a retained right of residence, she had resided continuously in the United Kingdom thereafter for five years and was entitled to permanent residence.

The application was refused on the basis that, although she had been granted previously a residence card on the basis of having a retained right of residence, that was in error and the Secretary of State was not now satisfied that her EEA national former spouse had been exercising treaty rights at the date of the divorce. There was said to be a gap in the evidence of her former husband's earnings between April 2016 and April 2017.

The judge in considering that issue noted the gap in the documentary evidence and was unable to find that the former husband had been exercising Treaty rights either at the time the divorce was initiated or indeed when it formally ended. He found there was no evidence that he had been exercising Treaty rights in the UK at any time after 5 April 2016, over a year before the divorce and dismissed the appeal.