Stephen Knafler QC and Shu Shin Luh appeared in a ground-breaking immigration Fast Track Procedure case in the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal accepted the case advanced by Stephen and Shu Shin, "in clear and forceful submissions of the highest quality" that Fast Track hearings must be adjourned, and if necessary, taken out of the Fast Track, in order to allow a party to answer the case again him by way of evidence (e.g. to secure his own social work report on age, in an age dispute case): SH (Afghanistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 1284.
The First Tier Tribunal's failure to do so had been unlawful and the Upper Tribunal had also acted unlawfully, by dismissing the appeal on the basis that the FTT had not acted irrationally and that new evidence was not likely to have made a difference (and not applying the "pointlessness test"). Ultimately, unfortunately for SH, the Court of Appeal decided not to grant relief on the basis that SH's case was "one of those rare cases" where the evidence against SH was "so overwhelming that it is pointless to remit".
The legal tests, however, that the Court accepted should be applied, will make it very difficult for any case to remain within the Fast Track where there is a genuine dispute on which the appellant wishes to adduce relevant evidence.
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