Case No. UKUT-00515-(IAC)

(or establishing) of private life confined to its initiation, or creation? Mr Malik submitted that the normal meaning of the verb “ establish ” impels to an affirmative answer. In response to a question from the Tribunal, Mr Malik accepted that private lives and relationships are by their vary nature effervescent and dynamic rather than static. He agreed that neither comes into existence abruptly. Rather, both are developed progressively, with a distinct element of evolution. While it is a truism that every person ’ s private life and relationships develop at different paces, some more quickly than others, I consider that this does not a ssist the Appellant s ’ argument. On the contrary it confounds it. . 25. In choos ing the verb “ establish ” in section 117B(4) and (5), it seems likely that the draftsman has simply drawn from the long standing and repeated judicial espousal of this term. Developing the analysis begun in [24] above, I consider that, in this statutory context, “ established ” is synonymous with “ developed ”. The construction of “ established ” advanced on behalf of the Appellants is, in my view, artificially narrow. I t is further defeated by the long established absurdity principle of statutory construction, familiar to all: Parliament is presumed not to have intended an absurd effect or consequence. T he suggestion that the “ little weight ” instruction enshrined in section 117B(4) and (5) applies only to the beginning of a person’s private life or the commencement of a relationship formed with a qualifying partner and not the continuance of either results in a construction of these provisions which, in my estimation, is manifestly unsustainable to the point of absurdity. Why penalise the former and not the latter? No rational explanation or justification for this differential treatment was advanced in argument and I am unable to conceive of any. 26. Furthermore, the construction advocated on behalf of the Appellants would, in my opinion, be unworkable in practice. The exercise of attempting to delineate the