[2025] UKUT 00230 (IAC)

The Appellant’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal came before a panel (the President and Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Holmes) at an error of law hearing on 7 June 2024. By the time of the error of law hearing, the grounds of appeal were:

The Upper Tribunal found that there was no error of law in the First-tier Tribunal’s decision. In relation to Ground 2, the panel concluded, in reliance on Chimi and the Supreme Court decision in R (Begum) v Special Immigration Appeals Commission & Anor [2021] UKSC 7, [221] 2 All ER 1063, (“Begum No1”) that the First-tier Tribunal was correct to adopt a public law review approach to the question of whether the Appellant had used deception. The panel found no merit in Ground 1.

On 10 January 2025, the Appellant sought permission to appeal the Upper Tribunal’s decision to the Court of Appeal.

Whilst that application was pending, on 17 January 2025 the Court of Appeal handed down judgment in Chaudhry v SSHD [2025] EWCA Civ 16, [2025] WLR(D) 27, which is discussed in more detail below.

On 14 February 2025, the Upper Tribunal reviewed the error of law decision in light of Chaudhry and set the decision aside pursuant to Rules 45 and 46 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008. The matter was listed for a further error of law hearing before this panel on 22 May 2025.

Before us, it was not in issue that the First-tier Tribunal had erred in law as asserted in Ground 2 and the only question under that Ground was whether that error was material to the outcome of the appeal. Having heard submissions from the parties, we concluded that it was material, for the following reasons. We have scrutinised the concession made under Ground 2 and for reasons which follow we are satisfied that it was soundly made.