LSH
Heard at Field House		NA (Certificate _Upheld No Valid Appeal) Azerbaijan [2004] UKIAT 00013 	
On 20 January 2004			

IMMIGRATION APPEAL TRIBUNAL
	
Corrected transcript of decision given at hearing                            
Signed:           22.01.2004
Issued:            04.02.2004                               	

	Before:		

Mr J Freeman (chairman)
Mr D J Parkes
Mrs W Jordan
	
Between	

	
		CLAIMANT 	
			
	and		

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
	
		RESPONDENT 	
Miss S Haji (counsel instructed by Dozie & Co) for the claimant 
Miss J Sigley for the Secretary of State 

DETERMINATION AND REASONS

This is what purports to be an appeal against the decision of an adjudicator, Mr P Brenells, sitting at Taylor House on 15 May 2003.  We say “purports”, because the adjudicator ended his decision by upholding the Secretary of State’s certificate.  This was not the kind of certificate, with which everybody is familiar, certifying only the asylum appeal, because there had already been a human rights claim before the Secretary of State; and it is quite clear that the certificate applied to the claim as a whole. It follows that it was not caught by the decision of the Court of Appeal in Zenovics [2002] EWCA Civ 273, and it must be regarded as prima facie valid.  

2.	We raised this point, because it occurred to Mr Parkes, who had given permission in this case, that, on a correct view of the law, the certificate had prevented him from considering any such application at all. Miss Haji asked us to disregard the certificate, on the basis that current policy was to withdraw all certificates issued under the 1999 Act. Miss Sigley pointed out that that policy only came into operation as from June 2003; so probably did not cover the present decision, which was issued on 11 June.  Certainly, there had been no withdrawal before the adjudicator.

3.	While the delay and cost to public funds is regrettable, we cannot accept Ms Haji’s argument that either the legitimate expectation, such as it may have been, that an appeal would be heard by the Tribunal; or the change in Home Office policy, since the adjudicator’s decision, could possibly confer a power on us to hear such an appeal, which the statute does not give us.  We are a creature of statute and cannot get our powers from any other source. It follows that there is no valid appeal before the Tribunal, and the parties must take such further action to deal with the adjudicator’s decision as they see fit.
 
John Freeman
(chairman)