[2025] UKUT 00277 (IAC)

Bittar (PTA – FTT practice)

Heard at Field House

THE TRIBUNAL PROCEDURE (UPPER TRIBUNAL) RULES 2008

Promulgated on 15 July 2025

Before

JUDGE PLIMMER,

PRESIDENT OF THE FIRST-TIER TRIBUNAL (IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER)

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BLUNDELL

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE O’BRIEN

Between

WAELE BITTAR

Appellant

and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT

Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr Marziano, IAA Registered Adviser, Westkin Law

For the Respondent: Ms McKenzie, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

1. The current practice of salaried FTT judges considering PTA applications against their own decisions does not offend against the principles of procedural fairness and does not, in principle, give rise to concerns of apparent bias or a judicial mind which is closed to the merits of the application for PTA. The change promotes the most effective use of judicial time and furthers the overriding objective.

2. Judges of the FTT who consider applications for PTA will do so dispassionately and with an open mind and will give adequate reasons for their decisions. The decision on an application for PTA is not an opportunity to provide additional reasons for the substantive decision, or to defend that decision against challenge. It is particularly important that the language used in determining a PTA application does not give the impression that the judge approached that application with a closed mind.

3. A renewed application for PTA to the UT is against the substantive decision on the appeal, not the FTT’s decision on the application for PTA. The Upper Tribunal is for that reason unlikely to be assisted by extensive argument about the FTT’s decision on the application for PTA.

ON AN APPLICATION FOR PERMISSION TO APPEAL PURSUANT TO RULE 21

DECISION AND REASONS