Source: https://ukimmigrationjusticewatch.com/2019/04/12/part-1-after-konigeria-the-upper-tribunal-weighs-in-on-the-unduly-harsh-test/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 18:48:01+00:00

Document:
“In KO (Nigeria) & Others v Secretary of State for the Home Department  UKSC 53, the approval by the Supreme Court of the test of “unduly harsh” in section 117C(5) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, formulated by the Upper Tribunal in MK (Sierra Leone) v Secretary of State for the Home Department  UKUT 223 (IAC), does not mean that the test includes the way in which the Upper Tribunal applied its formulation to the facts of the case before it”.
“20.Turning to section 117C the structure is not entirely easy to follow. It starts with the general rules (1) that deportation of foreign criminals is in the public interest, and (2) that the more serious the offence the greater that interest. There is however no express indication as to how or at what stage of the process those general rules are to be given effect. Instead, the remainder of the section enacts specific rules for two categories of foreign criminals, defined by reference to whether or not their sentences were of four years or more, and two precisely defined exceptions. For those sentenced to less than four years, the public interest requires deportation unless exception 1 or 2 applies. For those sentenced to four years or more, deportation is required “unless there are very compelling circumstances, over and above those described in Exceptions 1 and 2”.
21.The difficult question is whether the specific rules allow any further room for balancing of the relative seriousness of the offence, beyond the difference between the two categories. The general rule stated in subsection (2) might lead one to expect some such provision, but it could equally be read as no more than a preamble to the more specific rules. Exception 1 seems to leave no room for further balancing. It is precisely defined by reference to three factual issues: lawful residence in the UK for most of C’s life, social and cultural integration into the UK, and “very significant obstacles” to integration into the country of proposed deportation. None of these turns on the seriousness of the offence; but, for a sentence of less than four years, they are enough, if they are met, to remove the public interest in deportation. For sentences of four years or more, however, it is not enough to fall within the exception, unless there are in addition “very compelling circumstances”.
22.Given that exception 1 is self-contained, it would be surprising to find exception 2 structured in a different way. On its face it raises a factual issue seen from the point of view of the partner or child: would the effect of C’s deportation be “unduly harsh”? Although the language is perhaps less precise than that of exception 1, there is nothing to suggest that the word “unduly” is intended as a reference back to the issue of relative seriousness introduced by subsection (2). Like exception 1, and like the test of “reasonableness” under section 117B, exception 2 appears self-contained.
23.On the other hand the expression “unduly harsh” seems clearly intended to introduce a higher hurdle than that of “reasonableness” under section 117B(6), taking account of the public interest in the deportation of foreign criminals. Further the word “unduly” implies an element of comparison. It assumes that there is a “due” level of “harshness”, that is a level which may be acceptable or justifiable in the relevant context. “Unduly” implies something going beyond that level. The relevant context is that set by section 117C(1), that is the public interest in the deportation of foreign criminals. One is looking for a degree of harshness going beyond what would necessarily be involved for any child faced with the deportation of a parent. What it does not require in my view (and subject to the discussion of the cases in the next section) is a balancing of relative levels of severity of the parent’s offence, other than is inherent in the distinction drawn by the section itself by reference to length of sentence. Nor (contrary to the view of the Court of Appeal in IT (Jamaica) v Secretary of State for the Home Department  EWCA Civ 932,  1 WLR 240, paras 55, 64) can it be equated with a requirement to show “very compelling reasons”. That would be in effect to replicate the additional test applied by section 117C(6) with respect to sentences of four years or more.
“By way of self-direction, we are mindful that ‘unduly harsh’ does not equate with uncomfortable, inconvenient, undesirable or merely difficult. Rather, it poses a considerably more elevated threshold. ‘Harsh’ in this context, denotes something severe, or bleak. It is the antithesis of pleasant or comfortable. Furthermore, the addition of the adverb ‘unduly’ raises an already elevated standard still higher.
The Upper Tribunal reiterated that a result of KO (Nigeria), the position is that, in determining whether Exception 2 (in section 117C(5)) applies, a court or tribunal is not to have regard to the seriousness of the offence committed by the person who is liable to deportation. Importantly, however stated the Upper Tribunal, the expression “unduly harsh” sets a high threshold.
The Upper Tribunal in RA rejected the submissions. Although the application of a legal test to a particular set of facts can sometimes shed light on the way in which the test falls to be applied, it is the test that matters. If this were not so, everything from the law of negligence to human rights would become irretrievably mired in a search for factual precedents.
It was considered that what might at first appear to be hard-edged findings of fact often turn out to be evaluative assessments. On analysing the relevant passages from MK (Sierra Leone), that was the position here. The Upper Tribunal’s conclusion that children aged 7 are at a “critical stage of their development” was such an assessment, based on the facts before it. It was not the laying bare of an obvious fact, of which any other court or tribunal must take “judicial notice”. One could envisage an equally valid argument that a child of 2 or 3 is at a critical stage of its development; or a child at or approaching puberty, and so on. Childhood is a developmental progression towards becoming an adult.
It was considered that in any event, RA’s submissions foundered when one read paragraph 46 of MK (Sierra Leone) in context. The Upper Tribunal in fact acknowledged that this was a “difficult and borderline case” and involved “an exercise bereft of bright luminous lines”. That was entirely right. The fact that the respondent may not have taken issue with the value judgment that the Tribunal reached in MK (Sierra Leone) did not mean that a differently constituted Tribunal, applying the test articulated in the first part of paragraph 46, could not lawfully have come to a different conclusion.
The actual decision of the Upper Tribunal in MK (Sierra Leone) does not form part of any legal test.
As could be seen from paragraph 27 of KO (Nigeria), the test of “unduly harsh” has a dual aspect. It is not enough for the outcome to be “severe” or “bleak”. Proper effect must be given to the adverb “unduly”. The position is, therefore, significantly far removed from the test of “reasonableness”, as found in section 117B(6)(b).
“The way in which a court or tribunal should approach section 117C remains as set out in the judgment of Jackson LJ in NA (Pakistan) & Another v Secretary of State  EWCA Civ 662”.
On the face of the section, subsection (6) applies only in the case of a foreign criminal who has been sentenced to a period of imprisonment of at least four years. As the Court of Appeal explained in NA (Pakistan), the purpose of section 117C(6) is to ensure that, in every “foreign criminal” case, Part 5A of the 2002 Act does not operate in such a way as to cause a violation of Article 8. For this reason, section 117C(6) must be read as applying, not only to “four years or more” cases but also to those other foreign criminals sentenced to imprisonment for a period of less than four years (to which one must add the two categories referred to by Lord Carnwath: offence of serious harm/persistent offender).
Nothing in KO (Nigeria) casts doubt upon this important conclusion of the Court of Appeal in NA (Pakistan).
“36.In relation to a medium offender, first see whether he falls within Exception 1 or Exception 2. If he does, then the Article 8 claim succeeds. If he does not, then the next stage is to consider whether there are “sufficiently compelling circumstances, over and above those described in Exceptions 1 and 2”. If there are, then the Article 8 claim succeeds. If there are not, then the Article 8 claim fails. As was the case under the 2012 rules (as explained in MF (Nigeria)), there is no room for a general Article 8 evaluation outside the 2014 rules, read with sections 117A-117D of the 2002 Act.
Although decided prior to the judgment of the Supreme Court in Hesham Ali (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department  UKSC 60 which held that the Immigration Rules relating to deportation were not a “complete code”, Jackson LJ’s judgment in NA(Pakistan) remains authoritative as regards the matters set out. Indeed, the finding at paragraph 38 of Hesham Ali that “very compelling circumstances” means “a very strong claim indeed” chimes with what Jackson LJ said about the nature of the test.
“Section 117C(6) applies to both categories of foreign criminals described by Lord Carnwath in paragraph 20 of KO (Nigeria); namely, those who have not been sentenced to imprisonment of 4 years or more, and those who have. Determining the seriousness of the particular offence will normally be by reference to the length of sentence imposed and what the sentencing judge had to say about seriousness and mitigation; but the ultimate decision is for the court or tribunal deciding the deportation case”.
In RA, the Upper Tribunal stated that in MS (s.117C(6): “very compelling circumstances”) Philippines  UKUT 122 (IAC) (4 March 2019), they addressed in detail the submission advanced in that case; namely, that on a proper reading of paragraphs 20 to 22 of Lord Carnwath’s judgment in KO (Nigeria), section 117C(2) has no part to play in the process required of a court or tribunal by section 117C(6), other than as regards the distinction between the two categories identified by Lord Carnwath in paragraph 20 of KO (Nigeria). The Upper Tribunal did not accept that submission (which was not, in any event, advanced in RA). The consequence, therefore, was that in the case of any foreign criminal, a court or tribunal engaged in determining whether “there are very compelling circumstances, over and above those described in Exceptions 1 and 2”, will need to have regard to the seriousness of the offence.
As regards how a judge should approach that task it was noted that Simon LJ held in Secretary of State for the Home Department v Suckoo  EWCA Civ 39:-“In general, the facts of the conviction and sentence will be sufficient: matters of mitigation will be taken into account at the sentencing hearing.
“56. Ms Patry’s second submission under Ground 2 is that the FTT adopted an impermissible approach and/or gave weight to immaterial factors, namely the mitigation which it considered to be available to the Respondent and his expressions of remorse: see in particular paras. 102-122 of its determination; and the conclusions at paras. 154-155. Ms Patry submits that this involved an element of “double counting”, since the mitigating factors had already been taken into account by the sentencing judge in arriving at the appropriate sentence for this case.
57.I do not regard the approach of the FTT in this regard to have been impermissible as a matter of law. I do not agree that questions of mitigation are totally irrelevant to the balancing exercise which the FTT had to perform. Ms Patry is right to say that questions of mitigation will already have played their part in arriving at the appropriate sentence for the underlying offence. However, it must be borne in mind that the three categories which are set out in the Immigration Rules are broad categories. In particular, the most serious category applies to any offender who has been sentenced to a sentence of imprisonment of at least 4 years. However, that can cover a wide range of cases. Although they are all serious, they can vary in degrees of seriousness. The criminal courts in this country come across some examples of the most heinous kind, which would be towards the top end of the range envisaged by Category 1. However, in an appropriate case, I can see no reason in principle why either aggravating factors or mitigating factors might not be taken into account by the FTT in assessing the seriousness of the offence in question and, accordingly, the strength of the public interest in deportation. Similarly, in a case such as the present, which falls into the intermediate category of seriousness, because the sentence passed was between 12 months and 4 years imprisonment, I can see no reason in principle why aggravating or mitigating factors may not be taken into account by the FTT”.
The usual way in which the judge will assign the offence a place within the relevant category will be by reference to the length of sentence imposed and what the sentencing judge had to say about seriousness and mitigation. But, as Singh LJ makes clear, the ultimate decision is for the court or tribunal.
The Upper Tribunal noted in RA, that there was debate as to the significance to be accorded to the particular issue of rehabilitation, as part of the section 117C(6) exercise.
As the Court of Appeal pointed out in Danso v Secretary of State for the Home Department  EWCA Civ 596, courses aimed at rehabilitation, undertaken whilst in prison, are often unlikely to bear material weight, for the simple reason that they are a commonplace; particularly in the case of sexual offenders.
The operation and harshness itself in practice of the unduly harsh test is evident in the outcome in RA. RA, an Iraqi national lost his deportation appeal despite having a British child and wife in the UK. The Upper Tribunal reached the conclusion that, “ Overall, expecting the daughter to live in Iraq would not be unduly harsh, applying the test approved in KO (Nigeria)”, and, “If the appellant were deported, life for the appellant’s wife and the daughter would, we find, be hard. It would, however, be far from being unduly harsh”. The Upper Tribunal also concluded that, “ Notwithstanding those factors in favour of the appellant, we conclude that the weight of the public interest is such that it cannot be said that there are very compelling circumstances, as required by section 117C(6), which would make deportation a disproportionate interference with the Article 8 rights of the appellant, his wife, or daughter. That is so, looking at each of their positions both individually and together”.
The expositions of the Upper Tribunal in RA bring no relief- they only serve to emphasize that “the expression “unduly harsh” sets a high threshold”.
This entry was posted in Deportation, Uncategorized and tagged RA (s.117C: "unduly harsh"; offence: seriousness) Iraq  UKUT 123 (IAC) (4 March 2019), Unduly harsh test; deportation of foreign nationals;. Bookmark the permalink.

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