The Court of Appeal is testing out a new style of “short form” judgment. Given the backlogs at the Court of Appeal at the moment, this seems eminently sensible. Although the particular judgment — yet another appeal by the Secretary of State against a deportation appealbeing allowed — does beg the question of whether permission is granted rather too readily to the Secretary of State despite the supposed strictures of the second appeals test:

This is a short form judgment which, with the encouragement of Sir Terence Etherton MR, judges of the Court of Appeal may in future use for appellate decisions in appropriate cases. This appeal raises no issue of law, precedent or other matters of general significance and the relevant facts and documentary material are set out in the judgment under appeal and are not in dispute.

That being so, how or why did this case pass the second appeals test in the first place? As a reminder the case is supposed to meet one of these two criteria:

(a) the proposed appeal would raise some important point of principle or practice; or

(b) there is some other compelling reason for the [Court of Appeal] to hear the appeal.

Source: BS (Congo) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 53 (07 February 2017)