A Sudanese woman has been granted permission to stay in the United Kingdom after her asylum claim was initially refused. The decision was overturned on appeal after she successfully argued that deportation would violate her human right to family life under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Isra Abdallah Ibrahim married her cousin, who had already been granted refugee status in the UK. The Home Office had initially believed the marriage was arranged solely to facilitate her immigration to the UK. Officials could find no official record of their 2011 marriage in Sudan, which the couple explained was due to local customs that did not typically involve recording such unions. They later remarried by proxy in 2014.
A lower immigration tribunal had previously dismissed Mrs. Ibrahim's claim, suspecting the proxy marriage in Libya was orchestrated to bolster her asylum case. However, an upper court has now recognized the marriage as legitimate.
The ruling confirmed that marriage between cousins is legal in the UK and many other countries, and therefore not grounds for refusing Mrs. Ibrahim's right to remain.
Path to the UK
According to Mrs. Ibrahim, her husband left Sudan for Libya first, working there for two years with initial plans to settle. The proxy marriage in March 2014 was intended to allow her to join him in Libya, as that country did not recognize their Sudanese marriage. However, her husband subsequently relocated to the UK after the security situation in Libya deteriorated significantly, where he was granted refugee status in 2015.
Upper Tribunal Judge Paul Lodato determined that the proxy marriage occurred while the sponsor was "habitually resident in Libya," having lived and worked there for over a year without immediate plans to leave for an onward destination. The judge was satisfied that the couple had resided in Libya for a "meaningful period of time."
The judge concluded that refusing asylum was "disproportionate" given that the couple was married while the sponsor was residing in his country of habitual residence. This led to the upper court's decision to uphold Mrs. Ibrahim's right to stay in the UK.