[2025] UKUT 00229 (IAC)

There are two principal issues in this case.

The first concerns the Secretary of State’s Evidential Flexibility policy, which generated considerable litigation between 2011 and 2018. By 2018, the policy had been refined to the point that it added nothing to the Immigration Rules. The current version of the policy (version 11) is said by the applicant to be wider in scope than the Immigration Rules and its predecessors. There is no reported authority on this version of the policy, which was published in January 2021.

The second issue concerns the process of Administrative Review, as governed by Appendix AR of the Immigration Rules. Specifically, this case concerns the correct construction of paragraphs AR3.3(d) and (e), which provide “gateways” through which evidence which was not before the original decision maker might be admitted on Administrative Review. There is no reported authority on the current version of these Rules, which were introduced in April 2024.