Nosiba Abdulwahid Hasab Alrasool Masaad v Entry Clearance Officer - Croydon

Facts

The appellant is a citizen of Sudan whose husband, the sponsor, was granted refugee status in the United Kingdom on 9 March 2022. On 25 September 2024 she applied for leave to enter to join him under the Refugee Family Reunion provisions of the Immigration Rules. The entry clearance officer refused the human rights claim on 15 May 2025, on the grounds that the relationship eligibility requirements were not met because the marriage certificate relied on was issued after the sponsor had fled to seek protection, that there was insufficient evidence of a genuine and subsisting relationship before 2022, that little weight could be given to untranslated excerpts of communications, that the appellant did not form part of the sponsor's pre-flight family unit, and that she had not provided a valid tuberculosis certificate. Following receipt of the appellant's evidence and appeal skeleton argument, the respondent conducted a review and on 20 February 2026 maintained the decision. The appellant's case was that she and the sponsor married on 15 February 2013, before he fled Sudan, that the relationship remained genuine and subsisting, and that refusal disproportionately interfered with their rights under article 8 of the ECHR. The appeal was heard at Taylor House on 1 September 2026, the sponsor giving evidence through an Arabic interpreter as a vulnerable witness.