The issues in NE-A (Nigeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 239 (11 April 2017) concerned the construction or application of section 117C(6) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 which provides that in the case of a foreign criminal who has been sentenced to a period of imprisonment of at least four years, the public interest requires deportation unless there are “very compelling circumstances”, over and above those described in the exceptions contained in section 117C(4)-(5).
It appears from the nature of the submissions put forward on behalf of the Appellants, that among other matters, the concern was that Section 117C (6) must not be applied as if it contained some abstract statutory formula and that in effect Tribunal Judges must be left to perform the well-established and well understood task of determining whether there is a breach of Article 8, instead of substituting a statutory test for that question.