Revised Practice Statements for the First-tier and Upper immigration tribunals have been published by the Senior President of Tribunals, Sir Ernest Ryder. They took effect on 11 June 2018 and replace the previous version from November 2014.

The new document is almost identical to the old. There appears to be only one deletion, as set out below.

4 Review of decision of First-tier Tribunal

4.1 On an application to the First-tier Tribunal for permission to appeal under section 11 of the 2007 Act (right to appeal to Upper Tribunal) on a point of law arising from a decision, the First-tier Tribunal may review that decision pursuant to First-tier rule 35, only if it is satisfied that there was an error of law in that decision.

4.2 Following such a review, the First-tier Tribunal may (subject to section 9(10)) set the decision aside under section 9(4)(c) and re-decide the matter concerned under section 9(5)(a). The First-tier Tribunal is, however, likely to adopt this course only if it is satisfied that:-

(a) the effect of any error of law has been to deprive a party before the First-tier Tribunal of a fair hearing or other opportunity for that party’s case to be put to and considered by the First-tier Tribunal; or

(b) there are highly compelling reasons why the matter should be re-decided by the First-tier Tribunal. (Such reasons are likely to be rare.)

4.3 Nothing in this Practice Statement affects the operation of First-tier rule 31 (clerical mistakes and accidental mistakes and omissions) or rule 32 (setting aside a decision which disposes of proceedings)

In other words, the new section 4 reads the same as the old section 4 but with the crossed-out text omitted.

Nothing else has changed, so far as we can tell. Do let us know if we’ve missed anything.