An immigration judge has been found to be failing to meet his duties and having a lack of knowledge of the requirements of the Immigration Rules.
The Upper Tribunal has had 3 judges examine 13 individual matters, which were decided by the same First Tier Tribunal judge, Judge Majid. This is undeniably an unusual arrangement however this was inspired by several of Judge Majid’s decisions having been eligible for successful appeals. In addition, this was inevitably highlighted to the Upper Tribunal when it became abundant that such appeals were being made on comparable grounds.
Judge Majid is blind and works with an assistant, however it is important to note that although the Upper Tribunal accepted that this would restrict him from conducting complex matters in writing at short notice, his disability should not impair his ability to apply the law together with his reasoned conclusions.
The result of examining Judge Majid’s decision was that he is “wholly failing to meet the standards that are demanded by the office of a judge and expected by the parties.”
A recurrent ground for appealing Judge Majid’s decisions was that he did not provide sufficient and informed reasons for his decisions and due to the inadequacy of these decisions; parties were left uncertain of the reasons of the outcome of their matter.
After examining the appeals, the judge was found to have trivial awareness of the relevant requirements of the Immigration Rules for each application. Only basic principles of the Immigration Rules were referred to in his decisions and these often appeared to be wrong. A further concern was that the judges found that he not only had an insufficient knowledge of the content of the Immigration Rules, he did not seem to have full understanding of his own powers as a judge.
Further, for the reasons set out in the individual decisions of each of the 13 cases; the Upper Tribunal have set aside each of the decisions that Judge Majid has made in each these cases. Subsequently, the appeals have been remitted to the First Tier Tribunal to be re-heard before an unconnected judge.
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©Gherson 2017