Court of Appeal issues new-style short judgment

The Court of Appeal has issued a new-style ‘short judgment’ in an immigration case, avoiding the lengthy documents normally issued by courts.

This concerned an appeal by the Home Office against a decision by the First Tier Tribunal that a family should not be relocated to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Lady Justice Rafferty said the short form of judgment, as recommended by Sir Terence Etherton, Master of the Rolls, could be used as the case “raises no issue of law, precedent or other matters of general significance and the relevant facts and documentary material are set out in the judgment under appeal and are not in dispute”.

The entire judgment runs to only 1,177 words and explains why the court dismissed the Home Office’s appeal.

It said: “The entire factual context was in play before the First Tier Tribunal which heard of the years of delay post-release during which the respondent reported faithfully as required but the [Home Office] did nothing.

“Delay, which it reminded itself is not per se reason to allow an appeal, nevertheless tempers precariousness. The panel heard the family tested, found the relationships genuine and subsisting, and after a careful analysis and anxious scrutiny found the balance, just, in the respondent's failure.”

The case was finely balanced but the First Tier Tribunal had been entitled to conclude that very compelling circumstances outweighed the public interest in deportation, the court ruled.