OA185322013

For the Respondent/Claimant: Mr M Ahmed, Solicitor, Lincoln�s Chambers Solicitors

The Specialist Appeals Team appeals on behalf of an Entry Clearance Officer from the decision of the First-tier Tribunal allowing the claimant�s appeal to refuse her entry clearance as the spouse of a person present and settled here. The First-tier Tribunal did not make an anonymity direction, and I do not consider that the claimant or her spouse requires anonymity for these proceedings in the Upper Tribunal.

The application was made on 5 June 2013, and it was refused in two stages. It was initially refused on 25 August 2013. One of the reasons for refusal was that the claimant did not meet the income threshold requirement under Appendix FM and/or the related evidential requirements under Appendix FM-SE. However, no final determination was made at this stage as to whether the claimant met the income threshold and/or related evidential requirements because the Court of Appeal had not yet decided the outcome of the Secretary of State�s appeal in a legal challenge to the income threshold requirement.

The application was refused for a second time on 10 September 2014 on the same grounds as before. In respect of the financial requirement, the Entry Clearance Officer continued to insist that the claimant had failed to provide the specified documents in respect of her sponsor�s employment by Khyber Pass Restaurant.

In his subsequent decision, Judge Macdonald set out the panel�s findings at paragraphs [18] to [20]. The panel found that the relationship between the claimant and the sponsor was genuine and subsisting, and that the parties to the marriage genuinely intended to live together permanently as husband and wife in the United Kingdom. He went on in paragraph [20] to address the other issue which was in dispute, namely whether the claimant satisfied the financial requirements. He said: