Appeal to Court of Appeal from Immigration Appeal Tribunal - appellant leaving UK for 24 hours - appeal not deemed abandoned

Shirazi v Secretary of State for the Home Department: CA (Lords Justice Mummery and Sedley and Mr Justice Munby): 6 November 2003

The applicant, an Iranian, sought asylum as a political refugee.

His application was refused.

The Immigration Appeal Tribunal rejected his appeal, based both on his original reason for application (a fear of persecution for political opinions) and on his conversion to Christianity once in England.

He appealed but subsequently left the UK for Amsterdam, where he was refused entry, and returned within 24 hours.

Assuming that voluntary departure did not have to be with the intention of giving up residence, the court had first to determine whether section 58(8) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, which deemed abandoned a pending appeal under part IV of that Act if the appellant left the UK, applied to the appeal.

Frances Webber (instructed by Switalski's Solicitors, Wakefield) for the applicant; Steven Kovats (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the secretary of state.

Held, allowing the appeal, that there was a distinction between appeals under part IV of the 1999 Act and further appeals; that further appeals were those to the Court of Appeal and the Court of Session and nothing in the legislation said that deemed abandonment touched further appeals; that an appeal to the Court of Appeal against an Immigration Appeal Tribunal's decision was therefore not to be treated as abandoned where the appellant left the UK for a short period, and the appeal would accordingly proceed; and that the issue of the applicant's religious conversion would be remitted to the tribunal.