Immigration and Asylum Chamber First-tier or Upper Tribunals: Home Office procedures after an appeal is allowed
Published 20 November 2013
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FOI Release 29060
The Immigration and Asylum Chamber First-tier and Upper Tribunals hear all appeals arising from adverse immigration decisions of the Home Office that carry a statutory right of appeal. Decisions of the Tribunal are amenable to further challenge (to the Upper Tribunal in the case of decisions by the First-tier or the Court of Appeal where the decision on the appeal was made by the Upper Tribunal) if the unsuccessful party elects to appeal and can demonstrate that the Tribunal arguably made a legal error in making its decision.
In either case, the general position after an appeal has been allowed is that the Tribunal will send to all parties, including the Home Office, a written copy of its decision. In respect of cases allowed by the First-tier Tribunal, the unsuccessful party will have five working days (or 28 days, in the case of an appellant who is outside of the United Kingdom) in which to seek permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal. Where a party is unsuccessful in securing permission and renews that application direct to the Upper Tribunal the time limit, with few exceptions, is seven working days (or 56 days, in the case of an appellant who is outside of the United Kingdom). Where the appeal has been determined by the Upper Tribunal, the usual position, with few exceptions, is that the unsuccessful party has 12 working days (or 38 days in the case of an appellant outside of the United Kingdom) in which to seek permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
The first check to be conducted, therefore, prior to implementation of any allowed appeal is to review the Tribunal’s decision and consider whether or not there are grounds to challenge the decision. The Home Office has a specialist Allowed Appeal Review Team which is dedicated to this purpose and which considers all allowed appeals within those timeframes.
In cases where the Home Office decides not to pursue a further appeal, it will generally fall to the relevant case working team that made the initial immigration decision to implement the applicable form and duration of leave to which the claimant is entitled. Because this function is performed by a range of operational teams across the Home Office, responsible for implementing appeals that relate to a broad range of case categories, there is no set target in place governing implementation of appeals generally. A notable exception to this is appeals against decisions overseas, for which there is a target to act upon the allowed appeal within eight weeks of receipt, at post, of the allowed appeal determination. Once the Allowed Appeal Review Team has concluded that the Tribunal’s decision will not be challenged, it will, however, record that decision and ensure that all relevant papers and actions are notified to the unit responsible for implementation without delay.
In cases where the Home Office has decided not to contest an allowed appeal, claimants should expect to be contacted by the unit responsible for implementing their grant of status with details as to next steps, but if up to date information is required about the status and progress of the case, claimants can contact the Immigration Enquiry Bureau.