Immigration

Illegal immigrant - right to family life - deportation order disproportionate

Edore v Secretary of State for the Home Department: CA (Lords Justice Simon Brown, Waller and Kay): 23 May 2003

E, a Nigerian citizen, had been in the UK since her illegal entry in 1990.

Her two children, fathered by a naturalised British citizen living with his wife and their three children, were born in 1999 and 2000.

He maintained a close and loving relationship with E's children which would end if they were deported since he would not leave his wife to live with E.

A special adjudicator allowed, under section 65 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, E's appeal against a deportation order on the ground that it would infringe the right of her and her children to family life under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Immigration Appeal Tribunal allowed the secretary of state's appeal against the decision.

E appealed.

Sibghat Kadri QC and Satvinder Juss (instructed by Ikie Solicitors) for E; Ashley Underwood QC (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the secretary of state.

Held, allowing the appeal, that the question was whether the deportation decision was properly within the secretary of state's discretion, namely, a decision which could reasonably be regarded as proportionate and as striking a fair balance between the article 8 rights and the need for effective immigration control; and that on the facts there was only room for one view as to how that balance should be struck and that was the view that deportation would be disproportionate.

(WLR)