The Claimant was represented by Greg Ó Ceallaigh KC of the Garden Court Immigration Law Team, acting for Zyba Law.
The High Court has quashed the decision of the Home Office to curtail the leave to remain of a man alleged to have been working in a different category to the one permitted. This allegation was made on the basis of an interview that was found to be in breach of the basic requirements of procedural fairness.
Mamun Ahmed came to the United Kingdom to work as a skilled worker, but stated that when he arrived he found that his employer was not ready for him to start work. As a result, he spent time visiting his family, including his uncle who owned a takeaway shop.
A few weeks after his arrival, Home Office officers were carrying out a random operation in Birmingham New Street station, and saw Mr Ahmed. One of the officers felt that he looked nervous and so stopped to question him about his leave to remain. Officers interviewed him to see if his leave to remain could be curtailed, whilst Mr Ahmed was sitting on a chair in front of the entire station.
The officer decided that Mr Ahmed was working for his uncle, instead of in the care home that had sponsored him, in breach of the conditions of his visa. They curtailed his leave and detained him for removal.
His Honour Judge Simon accepted the Claimant’s submission that the interview, which had been carried out without an interpreter, without warning him of the risk that he faced, and without a solicitor, in full view of passers by, was in breach of the basic requirements of procedural fairness.
The decision noted that the Claimant had been simply “going about his business” and there was no evidence of measures taken “to ensure that the Claimant’s dignity was preserved, that he was enabled to concentrate on listening to and answering questions in a second language”.
There was no evidence, “let alone compelling evidence”, that he had done anything wrong in the first place when the decision was made to interview him.
HHJ Simon held that in the very specific circumstances of the case, it had been a breach of the requirements of procedural fairness to interview him without affording him “sufficient knowledge and understanding of the gravity of the situation, and the opportunity to reflect on, and communicate clearly, whether he wished someone to be informed and to request this (whether legal advice and/or a responsible individual such as his uncle)”.
Moreover, the fact that he was questioned in a train station sitting on a chair in full view of the public itself made the interview unfair:
“To conduct questioning of the centrality and importance to the Claimant’s immediate and long-term future without any regard to the physical surroundings and their impact on the process created, in my judgment, procedural unfairness.”
