The Senior President of Tribunals has issued a new Practice Direction of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal taking effect from 1 November 2024. This replaces the previous version dated May 2022.

The new version is considerably longer, up from 12 pages in the previous version to 19 pages, you can see a comparison here. There are a lot of important changes so you will need to read it all very carefully. It applies to appellants in person as well as legal representatives, albeit with some modifications (see paragraph 1.5).

Page limits and bundles

The new Practice Direction has set page limits for various documents:

• 12 pages for the appellant’s skeleton argument where there is a legal representative (paragraph 7.6)
• 6 pages for the respondent’s review (paragraph 7.11)
• 20 pages for expert reports (paragraph 9.2)
• 12 pages for country information evidence schedule (paragraph 10.6)

The new requirements for expert reports and country information are particularly striking and will require careful reading by lawyers preparing and presenting appeals.

It is possible to make an application to the tribunal for permission when documents exceed these lengths. Paragraph 1.6 states that the text in these documents must be no smaller than size 12 font with 1.5 line spacing.

Bundle scanning and format requirements are set out at paragraph 7.2:

Any bundle prepared by a legal representative and the respondent must be in a digital, indexed, bookmarked and paginated format where every page is A4 (unless a larger page size is required for good reasons). Any documents with typed text must be formatted so that characters can be recognised by the software (this function is known as Optical Character Recognition (‘OCR’)) unless doing so garbles the text.

Ensuring that characters can be recognised by the software seems to mean things like ensuring high quality and straight scans for pdfs.

The relatively recent requirement to have witnesses give statements in their own language then get that statement translated has, thankfully, been jettisoned and replaced with the need for an interpreter’s statement instead (paragraph 8.5):

The witness statement must, if practicable, be in the intended witness’s own words. The statement need not be in a language that the witness understands. If drafted in English and this is a language not understood by the witness, it must include a signed and dated attestation by both the witness and the person who interpreted it that the statement has been read back to the witness in a language they understand and that it accurately reflects their evidence.

The double-statement requirement was obviously disproportionate and a waste of scarce legal aid resources. Although maybe it did help some cases escape the fixed fee threshold…

Written reasons

Where oral reasons for a decision are given at the end of a hearing, the parties are expected to keep a note of that (paragraph 14.3). This has presumably been codified because of what appears to be a significant move away from providing written decisions.

15.2. In the giving of reasons, as always in the conduct of Tribunals business, judicial time should only be spent on tasks that are essential to achieving the efficient and effective administration of justice. Written reasons should only be provided where they are expressly required by the Procedure Rules or where the interests of justice otherwise compel written reasons being given, and, in every case where they are required, only to the extent and in the terms necessary to dispose justly of the matter in hand. Any practice of routinely providing written reasons that do not need to be provided fails to make full and effective use of judicial time, which is a precious resource in the justice system.

Section 29(3) of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Rules 2014 states that:

(3) Where the decision of the Tribunal relates to—
(a) an asylum claim or a humanitarian protection claim, the Tribunal must provide, with the notice of decision in paragraph (2)(a), written reasons for its decision;
(b) any other matter, the Tribunal may provide written reasons for its decision but, if it does not do so, must notify the parties of the right to apply for a written statement of reasons.
(4) Unless the Tribunal has already provided a written statement of reasons, a party may make a written application to the Tribunal for such statement following a decision which disposes of the proceedings
(5) An application under paragraph (4) must be received within 28 days of the date on which the Tribunal sent or otherwise provided to the party a notice of decision relating to the decision which disposes of the proceedings.
(6) If a party makes an application in accordance with paragraphs (4) and (5) the Tribunal must, subject to rule 13(2) (withholding a document or information likely to cause serious harm), send a written statement of reasons to each party as soon as reasonably practicable. 

Appellants should still be able to get written decisions under section 29, although these may be quite short in line with the Practice Direction.

Adjournments

Applications for adjournments must now be accompanied by draft directions and any “reasonably available supporting material or evidence” must also be provided (paragraph 12.1).

Conclusion

These are some fairly substantial changes and it is unclear why more notice has not been given to practitioners.