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Both cases involved applications for extension of time (EOT) for the filing of an appellant's notice where permission to appeal had already been granted by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT), but due to the fault of their solicitors notices of appeal had not been served in time. The applications would be granted. The following principles were to be adopted: (i) there should be a presumption that where the AIT had granted permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal the appeal ought to be heard; (ii) if a procedural fault caused the court to have to consider whether the appeal should proceed, the presumption might be displaced if it could be shown that the decision of the immigration judge was plainly wrong, in the sense that it was clear that failure to pursue the appeal would not lead to the United Kingdom being in breach of its international obligations. The court on a preliminary application, such as the present, would have to make that assessment without actually hearing the appeal, but the enquiry was likely to come close to being in substance an appeal rather than just an application; (iii) length of delay, when caused by legal representatives, should not be relevant; (iv) where delay had been caused by the applicant the court was likely to look carefully at the light that that shed on the credibility of the assertion that the applicant had a good claim for international protection. At the same time, the court would remind itself that if after that scrutiny such a claim was established, then the claimant was indeed entitled to international protection despite the domestic court's disapproval of his conduct or his way of promoting his case. Click here for the judgment
