SL & Anor v Entry Clearance Officer – Addis Ababa

Facts

The first appellant is a citizen of Somalia and the second appellant her younger sister, dependent on her; the two have lived together since 2005 when they lost their parents. The first appellant married the sponsor, Isa Fos Sharif, a Somali national with refugee status who came to the United Kingdom in 2002, in Djibouti in July 2006, having known him in Mogadishu. She later moved to Ethiopia, where the sponsor visited her for some three and a half weeks in August and September 2007 on a three-month visa; she gave birth to their child on 19 June 2008. The Entry Clearance Officer in Addis Ababa refused entry clearance as spouse and dependent relative. Immigration Judge O'Garro found the marriage genuine and subsisting but held that the maintenance requirements of paragraph 281 of HC 395 were not met, the sponsor's income falling well below benefit levels; she nevertheless allowed the appeals under Article 8 on the footing that there were insurmountable obstacles to family life elsewhere. On the Secretary of State's application, a Senior Immigration Judge ordered reconsideration and concluded that the Immigration Judge had materially erred in law, directing a full reconsideration of the Article 8 ground while preserving the findings under the Rules.