Please see below for ILPA’s response to the Tribunal Procedure Committee’s Consultation on Possible changes to the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Rules and the Upper Tribunal Rules arising from Nationality and Borders Act 2022.
Several sections of the NBA necessitate the making of procedural rules, including in relation to priority removal notices, accelerated detained appeals, and age assessment appeals, as well as Tribunal reasons and credibility decisions. The TPC sought views on the form these rules should take, as well as on a potential change to the current rules in the FtTIAC in relation to expert witnesses, to harmonise them with other chambers of the FtT, which is not required by the NBA but arose in the context of the Government’s ‘New Plan for Immigration’ proposal to require use of joint experts.
ILPA’s response highlighted our deep concern about the impact that several provisions in the NBA and their implementation through the Tribunal Procedure Rules will have on the fairness and justice of appeals in the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of both the FtT and UT, as well as our concern that the only fair procedural rules would result in great expenditure of resources by the Tribunal and practitioners, such that they may be unworkable in practice and further jeopardise the sustainability of the immigration legal aid sector.
- Document Date
- Thursday January 19, 2023