R v. Miah
- Author: Criminal Division
- Document source:
-
Date:
20 December 1973
R v Miah
COURT OF APPEAL, CRIMINAL DIVISION
[1974] 1 All ER 1110
Hearing Date: 26 NOVEMBER, 20 DECEMBER 1973
20 DECEMBER 1973
Index Terms:
Immigration - Statute controlling immigration - Retrospective operation - Penal provisions - Illegal entry - Possession of false passport - Acts performed before statute creating offences came into force - Statute applied to persons entering United Kingdom before it came into force - Acts done under former immigration laws having effect as if done under statute - Whether statute creating offences in respect of acts performed before it came into force - Immigration Act 1971, ss 24(1)(a), 26(1)(d), 34(1).
Held:
At some time before 29th September 1972 the appellant, a Pakistani, entered the United Kingdom illegally by means of a false passport. On 28th October 1971 the Immigration Act 1971 was passed. It came into force on 1st January 1973. The appellant was apprehended by the police on 29th September 1972 and, in October 1973, he appeared before the Crown Court on an indictment containing two counts: (i) being an illegal immigrant, contrary to s 24(1)(a) a of the 1971 Act, the particulars alleging that on a day unknown between 22nd October 1970 and 29th September 1972, being a person who was not a patrial within the meaning of the 1971 Act, he had knowingly entered the United Kingdom without leave; (ii) being in possession of a false passport, contrary to s 26(1)(d) b of the 1971 Act, the particulars alleging that, on 29th September 1972, he had in his possession for the purposes of the 1971 Act a passport which he had reasonable cause to believe was false. The appellant was convicted on both counts. On appeal the Crown contended that the penal provisions of the 1971 Act were retrospective in that s 34(1)(a) c applied the whole of the 1971 Act to persons who had entered the United Kingdom before the Act came into force and s 34(1)(b) provided that anything done under or for the purposes of the former immigration laws should have effect as if done under or for the purposes of the 1971 Act. a Section 24(1), so far as material, is set out at p 1112 f, post b Section 26(1), so far as material, is set out at p 1112 j, post c Section 34(1) is set out at p 1113 b and c, post Held - The appeals would be allowed and the convictions quashed. Sections 24(1)(a) and 26(1)(d) of the 1971 Act were not retrospective, and therefore could not apply to anything done by the appellant before the Act came into force, for the language of s 34(1) did not clearly express the intention that the penal provisions of the 1971 Act should be retrospective. On the true construction of s 34(1), para (a) applied in relation to the persons of immigrants and not to things done by them, and para (b) dealt with acts of the executive, e g the acts of immigration officers in granting leave or directing removal etc, and had nothing to do with anything done by the immigrants themselves (see p 1115 e and p 1116 e to g and j to p 1117 b and d to f, post).Notes:
For offences under the Immigration Act 1971, see 4 Halsbury's Laws (4th Edn) 518, para 1027. For the presumption against the retrospective operation of statutes, see 36 Halsbury's Laws (3rd Edn) 423-426, paras 644, 645, and for cases on the subject, see 44 Digest (Repl) 285, 1136-1145. For the Immigration Act 1971, ss 24, 26, 34, see 41 Halsbury's Statutes (3rd Edn) 43, 47, 54.Cases referred to in the Judgment:
Azam v Secretary of State for the Home Department [1973] 2 All ER 765, [1974] AC 18, [1973] 2 WLR 1058, HL; affg sub nom R v Governor of Pentonville Prison, ex parte Azam [1973] 2 All ER 741, [1973] 2 WLR 949, CA. R v Mejit Singh Jhour (27th November 1973) unreported, CA. Singh (Gurdev) v The Queen p 26, ante, [1973] 1 WLR 1444, DC.Introduction:
Appeal. Moyna Miah alias Abid Ullah appealed against his conviction on 10th October 1973 in the Crown Court at Grimsby before his Honour Judge Cotton on two counts charging offences against ss 24 and 26 of the Immigration Act 1971. The appellant was sentenced to six months imprisonment concurrent on each count. He was recommended for deportation and ordered to contribute @ 350 towards his legal aid costs. The facts are set out in the judgment of the court.Counsel:
E F Jowitt QC and C G Young for the appellant. H A Skinner QC and David Farrer for the Crown.Judgment-READ:
Cur adv vult. 20th December. PANEL: STEPHENSON LJ, CHAPMAN AND FORBES JJJudgment One:
STEPHENSON LJ read the following judgment of the court. On 8th October 1973 the appellant came before the Grimsby Crown Court in the name of Moyna Miah alias Abid Ullah on two charges: (1) being an illegal immigrant, contrary to s 24 of the Immigration Act 1971, and (2) being in possession of a false passport, contrary to s 26 of that Act. The judge rejected a motion to quash the indictment moved on the ground that the offences charged in both counts were unknown to the law at the time when they were alleged to have been committed. The jury convicted the appellant of both offences. On 10th October the judge sentenced him to six months imprisonment concurrent on each count, recommended him for deportation and ordered him to contribute @ 350 towards his legal aid costs. He appeals to this court against his convictions on the question of law raised by his motion to quash. Before considering whether the judge's ruling was right we must state the case for the prosecution, which the jury appear to have accepted after a retirement of only 21 minutes. On 29th September 1972 the appellant was interviewed by the police at Scunthorpe, where he was employed at a steel works under the name of Moyna Miah. He had in his possession two passports, one issued in Pakistan in November 1957, the other -- which was the subject of the second count -- issued at the Pakistan Commission in Leeds in July 1968 and stamped with two apparently genuine immigration officers' stamps, an embarkation stamp dated 22nd October 1970 and a landing stamp dated 28th October 1971. Each passport contained a photograph of the appellant in place of the original photograph, and other forged entries; each passport bore fingerprints corresponding with each other but not with the appellant's. The appellant claimed to be Abid Ullah, born on 27th June 1922, and not Moyna Miah, the name by which he was known. A medical examination in October 1972 showed that he was probably in his late thirties but at a further interview in January 1973 he persisted in saying that his true name was Abid Ullah, his true age 50, that apart from visits to Pakistan he had been in this country since 1957 and that both passports were his. But the prosecution case was that the real Abid Ullah had left this country in October 1970 and that the appellant had entered this country illegally by getting possession of Abid Ullah's forged passports and assuming the identity of Abid Ullah. The particulars of the two offences which on these facts the appellant was alleged to have committed were these: Count 1:'on a day unknown between the 22nd day of October 1970 and the 29th day of September 1972, being a person who was not patrial within the meaning of the Immigration Act 1971, knowingly entered the United Kingdom without leave.'
Count 2:'on the 29th day of September 1972 had in his possession for the purposes of the Immigration Act 1971, a passport No. AC 386290 which he had reasonable cause to believe to be false.'
Those offences are offences against ss 24(1)(a) and 26(1)(d) of the 1971 Act. The Act was passed on 28th October 1971 but those provisions, like most of the Act, did not come into force until 1st January 1973, that is more than three months after the latest date specified in the two counts. The ground of appeal is that the penal provisions of the Act, including these two provisions, are not retrospective in operation, or retroactive, and the appellant was charged with offences unknown to the law at the date or dates of their alleged commission and cannot be convicted of them. The case for the Crown is that the penal provisions of the Act, including these two, are retroactive and the appellant could therefore be lawfully convicted of both offences, although consisting of things done before this Act came into force. Sections 24 and 26 are both to be found in Part III of the Act which is headed 'Criminal Proceedings'. According to the sidenotes s 24 is concerned with 'Illegal entry and similar offences', s 26 with 'General offences in connection with administration of Act'. Section 24(1) provides:'A person who is not patrial shall be guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction with a fine of not more than @ 200 or with imprisonment for not more than six months, or with both, in any of the following cases: -- (a) if contrary to this Act he knowingly enters the United Kingdom in breach of a deportation order or without leave; (b) if, having only a limited leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom, he knowingly either -- (i) remains beyoned the time limited by the leave; or (ii) fails to observe a condition of the leave...' Then follow five further paragraphs setting out further offences similar to illegal entry, all referring to some section or schedule of the Act. Subsection (3) provides:
'The extended time limit for prosecutions which is provided for by section 28 below shall apply to offences under subsection 1(a), (b)(i) and (c) above.' Subsection (4) contains provisions in respect of immigration officers' stamps and the burden of proving leave to enter in proceedings for an offence against sub-s (1)(a).
Section 26(1) makes it an offence punishable in the same way to do or refuse or fail to do a number of different things, also set out in seven paragraphs, each one of which refers to the Act or a section or schedule of it. One of them is s 26(1)(d), which makes a person guilty of an offence --'if, without lawful authority, he... uses for the purposes of this Act, or has in his possession for such use, any passport, certificate of patriality, entry, clearance, work permit or other document, which he knows or had reasonable cause to believe to be false'.
Subsection (2) of that section applies the extended time limit provided for by s 28 to offences under sub-s (1)(c) and (d). Section 28 enables an information to be tried by a magistrates' court if it is laid within six months after the commission of the offence or within three years after the commission of the offence and not more than two months after the date on which evidence sufficient to justify proceedings came to the notice of the police -- a considerable extension of the time limit of six months previously fixed by s 104 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952 for summary offences. The argument in the Crown Court centred on s 34(1)(a) of the Act, but has extended in this court to s 34(1)(b). Section 34(1) and (2) read as follows:'(1) Subject to the following provisions of this section, the enactments mentioned in Schedule 6 to this Act are hereby repealed, as from the coming into force of this Act, to the extent mentioned in column 3 of the Schedule; and -- (a) this Act, as from its coming into force, shall apply in relation to entrants or others arriving in the United Kingdom at whatever date before or after it comes into force; and (b) after this Act comes into force anything done under or for the purposes of the former immigration laws shall have effect, in so far as any corresponding action could be taken under or for the purposes of this Act, as if done by way of action so taken, and in relation to anything so done this Act shall apply accordingly.
'(2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1)(a) and (b) above, a person refused leave to land by virtue of the Aliens Restriction Act 1914
shall be treated as having been refused leave to enter under this Act, and a person given leave to land by virtue of that Act shall be treated as having been given leave to enter under this Act; and similarly with the Commonwealth Immigrants Acts 1962 and 1968.'
Subsection (4) enacts that the former immigration laws shall continue to apply, and the Act shall not apply to three things done before the coming into force of the Act. There are, as is well recognised at least since the decision of the courts in Azam v Secretary of State for the Home Department n1, many indications that the Act has retroactive force. Indeed the contrary was not there argued: see what Lord Wilberforce n2 said. One is the definition in s 33(1) of the Act: n1 [1973] 2 All ER 765, [1974] AC 18, HL; affg [1973] 2 All ER 741, [1973] 2 WLR 949, CA n2 [1973] 2 All ER at 769, [1974] AC at 59'"entrant" means a person entering or seeking to enter the United Kingdom, and "illegal entrant" means a person unlawfully entering or seeking to enter in breach of a deportation order or of the immigration laws, and includes also a person who has so entered...'
The appellant entered the United Kingdom in breach of s 4A of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 as amended by the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, and that definition clearly makes him an illegal entrant who can be removed from the United Kingdom under the powers conferred by s 4 of the 1971 Act and Sch 2, paras 8 to 11 (see also s 16(1)(a) and Azam's case n1). And he would be an illegal entrant if he entered in breach of the 1971 Act because by s 33(1) -- n1 [1973] 2 All ER 765, [1974] AC 18, HL; affg [1973] 2 All ER 741, [1973] 2 WLR 949, CA'"immigration laws" means this Act and any law for purposes similar to this Act which is for the time being or has (before or after the passing of this Act) been in force...'
But to offend against s 24(1)(a) a person has (1) to be 'not patrial' and (2) to enter the United Kingdom 'contrary to this Act', and counsel for the appellant argues that although the appellant is admittedly not patrial and is admittedly an entrant arriving in the United Kingdom before the Act comes into force, it was not until the passing of the 1971 Act that the concept of patriality was defined or until the Act came into force 14 months later that the concept received statutory recognition and that therefore it was not until the Act came into force that a person could enter contrary to the Act. The word 'patrial' is used in the Act of persons who are first defined by s 2 as having the right of abode in the United Kingdom which is first defined by s 1. Although then incapable of being classed as not patrial, the appellant entered unlawfully contrary to an earlier statute. But did he unlawfully enter contrary to the 1971 Act because by s 34(1)(a) the Act as from 1st January 1973 applies in relation to him? The appellant answers, No, the Crown answers, Yes. The main argument by which these opposite answers are supported is broad and simple. The appellant says that a statute will not be construed to give retroactive force to criminal provisions unless it clearly does so in express words or by necessary implication, and s 34(1)(a) does not expressly or by implication apply Part III of the Act to things done before it came into force. The prosecution agrees with the general proposition but contends that s 34(1)(a) does apply Part III of the Act to such acts because it applies the whole Act in relation to those who arrive before the Act comes into force. On the one hand it is said that the words of the subsection are not 'this Act including Part III shall apply' as they would have to be to make Part III retroactive; on the other that the words are not 'this Act excluding Part III shall apply' as they would have to be to prevent Part III being retroactive. That latter contention found favour with the Crown Court judge and it was on that broad and simple ground covering both counts that he refused to quash the indictment. Counsel for the Crown contends that the judge's view of s 34(1)(a) is supported by the decision in Azam's case n1 while counsel for the appellant relies on certain observations by Lord Denning MR in the Court of Appeal n2 in that case to support this appeal. We agree with the judge that the question whether the provisions of Part III of the Act had such retroactive force was not argued or considered in Azam's case n1, where the questions considered all related to the validity of the detention of three immigrants under the 1971 Act and the questions decided were that they, having entered the United Kingdom in breach of the immigration laws, were therefore illegal entrants within s 33(1) and were all three 'there in breach of the immigration laws' within s 33(2), though two of them could not be prosecuted for the breach. Section 34(1)(a) is mentioned in two of the judgments in the Court of Appeal n3 and in one of the speeches in the House of Lords n4. It is true to say that Lord Denning MR in considering ss 24(1)(a) and 28(1)(a) of the Act and s 35(3), which we refer to later, states that n5 -- 'those who landed unlawfully before 28th April 1971 cannot be prosecuted for the offence of unauthorised landing', and the argument that the first and second immigrants whose cases were there considered were in the United Kingdom in breach of the immigration laws proceeded on the assumption that they could not be prosecuted. But it appears that only Azam entered within three years of 1st January 1973 and he came to the notice of the police more than two months before that date, so that he was immune from prosecution under the extended time limit provided by s 28 and the question whether s 28 (and the other provisions of Part III) could apply was irrelevant. Nor could the accused in Singh (Gurdev) v The Queen n6 have been prosecuted within that extended time limit for the offence against s 24(1)(b) of remaining longer than one month for which he was given leave to remain on 4th January 1969. The prosecution did, however, consent to our quashing the conviction in R v Mejit Singh Jhour n7 on 27th November 1973 for a similar offence against s 24(1)(b)(i) on the authority of Gurdev Singh's case n6 without taking the point, which would appear to have been applicable to the facts of that case (subject to our understanding of s 35(3) being right), that ss 24, 28 and 34 rendered him liable to prosecution since his leave to remain expired on 21st October 1970 and he was prosecuted in March 1973 within a day or two of the date certified under s 28(1). n1 [1973] 2 All ER 765, [1974] AC 18 n2 [1973] 2 All ER 741, [1974] AC 18 n3 [1973] 2 All ER at 750, 752, [1974] AC at 31, 33, per Lord Denning MR; [1973] 2 All ER at 763, [1974] AC at 47, per Stephenson LJ n4 [1973] 2 All ER at 776, [1974] AC at 68, per Lord Pearson n5 [1973] 2 All ER at 749, [1974] AC at 29 n6 Page 26, ante, [1973] 1 WLR 1444 n7 Unreported There is, however, no decision on this point and we have to decide it on the construction of the Act without the help of any authority. The 1971 Act by the very section, s 34, which we are considering, repealed most of the enactments which concerned immigrants, whether Commonwealth immigrants or aliens, and enacted a complete new code. It divided all persons in the United Kingdom, wherever born and whenever they first came or tried to come into the United Kingdom, into patrials with a right of abode and freedom to live here and to come and go (s 1(1)), and non-patrials who can only live and settle here by permission and subject to such regulation and control as is imposed by the Act (s 1(2)). It was therefore necessary to make it plain that this division applied to those who were already here or had already at some time been here before the Act came into force, as well as to those who entered or sought to enter after 1st January 1973. That seems to be the main object of s 34(1). The generality of the subsection is emphasised by the wording of s 34(2), which also gives particular instances of its application; namely, the grant and refusal of leave to land to aliens and Commonwealth immigrants by virtue of Acts repealed by the 1971 Act are to be treated as a grant and refusal under the 1971 Act. Such earlier grants or refusals are things done under or for the purposes of the former immigration laws and are to have effect as if done by way of corresponding action under the 1971 Act and the 1971 Act is to apply in relation to anything so done accordingly: s 34(1)(b). It does not matter when the alien or Commonwealth immigrant entered because the 1971 Act is to apply in relation to entrants or aliens arriving at whatever date: s 34(1)(a). But we do not find in this subsection or in s 33(1) any clear provision that an offence against earlier immigration laws is to be treated as an offence against the 1971 Act and is prosecutable and punishable accordingly. Section 33(1) clearly makes a person an illegal entrant if he enters or has entered unlawfully in breach of any immigration laws in force including the 1971 Act, but to say that it makes him a person who has entered unlawfully in breach of the 1971 Act begs the question whether he enters or has entered contrary to the 1971 Act. It is therefore in s 34 if anywhere that there is to be found a provision that entering contrary to this Act can take place before it has come into force. Counsel for the appellant relied in this court on one of the interim provisions of the 1971 Act, s 35(3), as supporting his interpretation of s 34. By that subsection:'The provisions of section 28(1) and (2) above shall have effect, as from the passing of this Act, in relation to offences under section 4A (unauthorised landing) of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 as amended by the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, other than offences committed six months or more before the passing of this Act, as those provisions are expressed to have effect in relation to offences to which the extended time limit for prosecutions is to apply under sections 24, 25 and 26 above...'
(Section 25(1) and (2) make it an offence to assist an illegal entrant or to harbour an illegal entrant and s 25(4) applies the extended time limit provided for by s 28 to those offences; s 25(1), and s 28 in its application to offences under s 25(1), were brought into force by s 35(2) at the end of one month beginning with the date on which the 1971 Act was passed -- in advance of ss 24 and 26.) It appears from s 35(3) that offences of unauthorised landing against the 1968 amendment of the 1962 Act (which are not made continuing offences) can, if committed less than six months before the passing of the 1971 Act, be prosecuted in a magistrates' court within three years of their being committed and two months after the police have enough evidence to prosecute. Apparently anticipating a considerable interval between the passing of the 1971 Act and its coming into force Parliament by this subsection altered the law relating to the prosecution of some existing offences before the new statutory offences were enacted and extended with one hand the time limit for prosecuting unauthorised landings by applying s 28 to them in the interval, while with the other it confined the extension to more recent landings. But it deals only with unauthorised landings contrary to the 1968 amendment of the 1962 Act while those statutory provisions were still in force, and does not deal with illegal entrants contrary to the 1971 Act after it had come into force and had repealed those provisions or decide the question whether the offences of illegal entry contrary to s 24(1)(a) of the 1971 Act include unauthorised landings contrary to s 4A of the 1962 Act -- or indeed illegal entries contrary to s 4(1) of the 1962 Act. It does, however, appear that if unauthorised landings contrary to s 4A of the 1962 Act are offences against s 24(1)(a) of the 1971 Act they are since 1st January 1973 subject to the risk of prosecution if they took place as long ago as January 1970, whereas between 28th October 1971 and 1st January 1973 they were immune from prosecution because they took place earlier than 28th April 1971. We do not think that Lord Denning MR had this point in mind when he made the unqualified statement which we have quoted in Azam's case n1. If this construction of s 35(3) is right and the exception to the application of s 28 is limited to offences under s 4A of the 1962 Act and cannot survive its repeal, the Crown's construction of s 34(1)(a) has the odd effect of reviving a risk of prosecution which had been removed by another provision of the same Act. This oddity seems to us to favour the appellant's construction of s 34(1)(a). n1 [1973] 2 All ER at 749, [1974] AC at 29 Even, however, if this interim provision in s 35(3) is no help to the appellant's construction of s 34, we do not find in any of the transitional or interim provisions of Part IV of the Act or in the provisions of Part III any clear indication of an intention to make offences committed against earlier statutes, or acts which may not then have been offences at all, offences against the 1971 Act after its coming into force. The provisions of Part III including the extension of the time limit for prosecution naturally relate to offences committed after that date and the provisions of s 34(1) have content and meaning without the necessity of attributing to Parliament an intention so contrary to generally accepted notions of justice. The general rule is that all statutes, other than those which are merely declaratory, or which relate only to matters of procedure or of evidence, are prima facie prospective, and retrospective effect is not to be given to them unless, by express words or necessary implication, it appears that this was the intention of the legislature. The presumption against retrospection applies in general to legislation of a penal character and such legislation is, in general, forbidden by the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1953) n2, art 7, and by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights n3, art 11(2): see Halsbury's Laws of England n4. n2 (1953) Cmd 8969 n3 (1949) Cmd 7662 n4 3rd Edn, vol 36, pp 423-426, paras 644-646 It may be, as the prosecution contend, that the principal object and effect of Part III of the 1971 Act are procedural (s 28): to multiply by six the time limit for prosecution of offences in connection with immigration which it codifies (ss 24 to 27). But we cannot regard those sections as merely declaratory and procedural. The ingenuity of counsel for the appellant has excogitated examples of persons who would offend against the provisions of s 24(1) but would not have committed any offence against former immigration laws, and we understood counsel for the Crown to concede that there may be the odd case which falls within the 1971 Act but outside those laws. The question we have to answer and do answer in the negative, is whether the language of the statute compels us to hold that it makes acts done in breach of past or existing immigration laws before the 1971 Act came into force offences against the 1971 Act after it came into force, with the important consequence that the extended time limit for prosecuting them applies. If Parliament intended to do that it could and should and, we think bearing in mind s 34(1)(b), would have used clearer language more aptly to express that intention than s 34(1)(a), which applies the Act in relation to the persons of immigrants and not to things done by them. We prefer to decide on this broad ground that this appeal should be allowed on both counts. We should, however, add (1) that the words in s 24(1)(a) 'contrary to this Act' might make it possible to distinguish the appellant from any person charged with an offence under paras (b) to (g) of the subsection, and (2) that we have also considered a separate argument which would find support for the appellant's convictions in s 34(1)(b). It is said for the Crown that to enter the United Kingdom without leave contrary to the 1971 Act is to do something under or for the purposes of the former immigration laws, and so also is to possess a false passport for use for the purposes of this Act. There is an obvious difficulty in the way of treating something done contrary to an Act or in contravention of it as done under it or for its purposes. The thing is done to defeat the purposes of the Act, not to further them, and we reject the application of s 34(1)(b) to an illegal entry contrary to s 24(1)(a) -- and, though we do not have to decide it, to any of the similar offences set out in the succeeding paragraphs. There is, however, less obvious difficulty, and indeed some plausibility, in considering the possession of a false passport to be a thing done under or for the purposes of the former immigration laws which it was used successfully to circumvent. The possession charged contrary to s 26 is possession (for use) for the purposes of the Act. But in our judgment s 34(1)(b) deals with acts of the executive, such as acts of immigration officers in granting leave or directing removal, and has nothing to do with what is done by the immigrants themselves. Even if that is too strict a construction of the language of s 34(1)(b) and the lawful act of obtaining a valid passport for the purpose of entering the United Kingdom is within the paragraph, we do not think that the offence of using, or having in your possession, a passport you know or believe to be false can be any more than the offence of altering a document issued or made under or for the purposes of the Act would be. The issue or making of the document is within para (b), the altering or the using or possessing it altered is not. It was not contended for the Crown, rightly we think, that prosecutions under Part III of the Act were actions within s 34(1)(b) of the Act. This is not a clear case and we have not found it easy to agree that the judge's ruling was wrong. This is not a case of an innocent man unjustly kept in custody; for the jury convicted the appellant of fraudulent conduct and lying in an attempt to conceal it, and we understand that he will be detained pending his removal from the United Kingdom whatever the fate of this appeal. But he has been convicted of offences committed against a statute before it came into force, and perhaps on one count before it was even passed; and that raises a greater question which we have decided in his favour. This appeal must be allowed and the convictions are quashed.DISPOSITION:
Appeal allowed. Convictions quashed. Leave to appeal granted, the court certifying that the following point of law of general public importance was involved: 'Whether the appellant could be convicted of offences against the Immigration Act 1971 in respect of things done by him before the Act came into force, and in particular offences against ss 24(1)(a) and 26(2)(d) of the Act.'SOLICITORS:
R A C Symes & Co, Scunthorpe (for the appellant); Hett, Stubbs and Kemp, Scunthorpe (for the Crown).Disclaimer: Crown Copyright
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