Introduction
1. For ease of reference, we shall refer to the Appellant in the proceedings before the Upper Tribunal as the Entry Clearance Officer (“ECO”) and the Respondent as the Claimant. 2. This appeal concerns the Family Reunion provisions within the Immigration Rules (“the Rules”), in particular para 352A. The core question for us to grapple with is one of interpretation: d oes the term “existed” in para 352A(iii) of the Rules mean that an applicant’s relationship with the refugee immediately prior to the departure of the latter from their country of former habitual residence had to have the qualitative character istic of being subsisting ? 3. The ECO asserts that the answer to this question is “yes” . The Claimant contends that the term denotes a state of affairs without any qualitative constituent. In other words, there is no need to show that the relevant relationship had more than formal content at the time of the refugee’s departure.