Sudanese Woman Took the Home Office to Court for Trying to Deport Her, Then Revealed to the Judge Why She Will Not Leave the UK, and the Court Granted Her Permission to Stay

A Sudanese woman has won her legal battle against the UK Home Office after a tribunal ruled that her marriage to her cousin was valid and that refusing her right to remain in the UK would be unfair.

Isra Abdallah Ibrahim had originally been refused permission to stay in Britain after officials questioned the reasons behind her marriage and believed she had married her husband mainly so she could eventually join him in Europe.

Mrs Ibrahim said she had first married her cousin through a customary Islamic marriage in Sudan in 2011. However, the marriage was not officially registered, which later became an important part of the case.

The couple later went through another marriage ceremony by proxy in Libya in March 2014. At the time, officials questioned whether the marriage was genuine and suggested that Libya was simply being used as a temporary stop before the couple moved to Europe.

The Home Office believed Mrs Ibrahim’s husband had never intended to build a life in Libya. Officials argued that he arranged the proxy marriage mainly so that his wife could eventually join him in the UK after he received refugee status.

However, Mrs Ibrahim challenged the decision and argued that she and her husband had a genuine family relationship. Her husband also gave evidence to the tribunal about what had happened and why they had married in Libya.

He explained that he had been living and working in Libya for more than a year and had originally intended to remain there. He had left his wife in Sudan while he worked in Libya and later arranged for them to marry by proxy because their customary Islamic marriage would not have been recognised by the Libyan authorities.

According to the evidence heard by the tribunal, the situation in Libya later became much worse because of deteriorating security. Her husband eventually decided to leave Libya and travel to Europe. He later came to the UK and was granted refugee status in 2015.

The tribunal accepted that his decision to leave Libya happened after the marriage and that he had not originally been planning to use Libya simply as a route to Britain.

Another important part of the case was the fact that the couple are first cousins. There was a legal argument about whether their relationship fell within the prohibited degrees of relationship under the relevant UK rules.

The tribunal ultimately found that the marriage did not break the applicable rules. In the UK, marriage between first cousins is legally permitted, meaning their relationship as cousins did not by itself make the marriage invalid.

The case was heard by the Upper Tribunal in Manchester. Mrs Ibrahim relied on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects a person’s right to respect for private and family life.

Upper Tribunal Judge Paul Lodato considered all the evidence, including the evidence given by Mrs Ibrahim’s husband. The judge concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, the couple had genuinely married in 2014 while the husband was habitually living in Libya.

The judge noted that the husband had already been living and working in Libya for well over a year when the proxy marriage took place. He had also taken steps to make arrangements for his wife’s legal status so that she could join him in Libya.

The tribunal therefore accepted that he had established a life in Libya for a meaningful period and had not simply been waiting there as a temporary stop on his way to Britain.

After considering the evidence, the tribunal allowed Mrs Ibrahim’s appeal. The decision meant that the Home Office’s refusal could not stand because the tribunal found that she had met the relevant immigration rules.

The case shows how complicated family and asylum cases can become when questions are raised about the validity of a marriage, where a couple lived at the time of the marriage and whether the relationship was genuine.

In Mrs Ibrahim’s case, the tribunal ultimately accepted her account and the evidence provided by her husband. It found that the marriage had taken place when he was habitually resident in Libya and that the refusal of her application was disproportionate.

As a result, the Sudanese woman was allowed to remain in the UK following her successful appeal against the Home Office.