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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Asylum and Immigration Tribunal >> MK (Family reunion policy: scope) Somalia [2008] UKAIT 00020 (01 February 2008) URL: https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIAT/2008/00020.html Cite as: [2008] UKAIT 20, [2008] UKAIT 00020 |
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MK (Family reunion policy: scope) Somalia
[2008] UKAIT 00020
Date of hearing: 8 November 2007
Date Determination notified: 01 February 2008
MK |
APPELLANT |
and |
|
ENTRY CLEARANCE OFFICER – ADDIS ABABA | RESPONDENT |
The wording of paragraph 16.2 of Diplomatic Services Procedures on family reunion is clear with regard to the family members who are entitled to family reunion under that policy. There is no scope for arguing that other family members fall within it.
"Only pre-existing families are eligible for family reunion, i.e. the spouse, civil partner, and minor children who formed part of the family unit prior to the time the sponsor fled to seek asylum. Other members of the family (e.g. elderly parents) may be allowed to come to the UK if there are compelling, compassionate circumstances."
"[Counsel] suggested more tentatively that the appellants were minor children within the scope of 'the spouse and minor children who formed part of the family unit' when the sponsor fled. We do not accept that latter suggestion; in context, it clearly refers to the spouse of and the minor children of the sponsor – refugee."
"For the foregoing reasons we reject the argument that the Tribunal is bound or entitled to consider or review the exercise of a discretion outside the Immigration Rules."
"Refusal to depart from or to authorise departure from immigration rules is not the exercise of a discretion for the purposes of subsection 3(b)."
This relates to the requirement that the Tribunal must allow an appeal insofar as it thinks that the discretion exercised in making a decision against which the decision is brought or is treated as being brought should have been exercised differently.
"It cannot be right to approach the disruption to family life which is caused by someone having to flee persecution as a refugee as if it were of the same nature as someone who voluntarily leaves, or leaves in the normal course of the changes to family life which naturally occur as children grow up."
"Even if it could be argued that there is still a subsisting family life as the sponsor is a refugee and that refusal amounts to an interference I do not find, following the dicta in Huang, [2007] UKHL 11, that the circumstances are truly exceptional as the appellants are not the sponsor's own children, they are accommodated by extended family, the sponsor is able to fund them from the UK and whilst arguably the sponsor may not be able to live legally in Ethiopia she can indeed visit and in turn the appellants can visit the sponsor."
Signed Date
Senior Immigration Judge Allen