9.11.2017 A & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] EWCA Civ 1123 (11 August 2004) those circumstances there was really nothing to displace the Secretary of State's evidence. SIAC found as a fact that B worked with Abu Doha and used a false name in purchasing telecommunications equipment. The closed material rendered the Secretary of State's conclusions "even more reasonable". The appeals were dismissed. JAMAL AJOUAOU 187. Ajouaou is from Morocco. He arrived in the United Kingdom on 24 December 1985. On 21 June 1988 he was granted indefinite leave to remain on the basis of his marriage to a British citizen. However the marriage broke up shortly afterwards. He made two applications for naturalisation as a British citizen, in 1990 and 1997. The latter application has not been formally determined. In 2000 he re-married, again to a British citizen, and there is a child of the marriage. 188. On 17 December 2001 the Secretary of State decided to make a deportation order against Ajouaou, and also to certify him pursuant to ATCSA s.25. On 19 December Ajouaou lodged appeals to SIAC against both decisions. But on 22 December 2001 he left the United Kingdom and has remained in Morocco since that date. His departure from this country meant that his outstanding appeals fell to be treated as abandoned: ATCSA s.27(1) and SIACA s.7A(4). But a ruling was sought and obtained from SIAC to the effect that this did not prevent the issue of a fresh notice of appeal, and that was done. (By the fresh notice Ajouaou sought to appeal, as he had earlier done, both against the deportation decision and the s.25 certificate. In fact the purported deportation appeal was ineffective because he was outside the United Kingdom.) However after this new appeal was lodged the Secretary of State revoked the s.25 certificate pursuant to ATCSA s.21(7). He did so on 16 January 2003, with effect (or purportedly with effect) from 22 December 2001, the date of Ajouaou's departure from the United Kingdom. As SIAC was to explain in paragraph 6 of their open specific judgment in Ajouaou's case the Secretary of State acted in this way because he took the view "that he could not properly believe that a person's 'presence in the United Kingdom' was a risk to national security if the person was not present in the United Kingdom". 189. As I will shortly demonstrate a like state of affairs arose in F's case. F lodged a fresh appeal after leaving for France, and the Secretary of State thereafter revoked his certificate. Now, it might be thought that once an appellant had left the United Kingdom, and the s.25 certificate issued in his case had in fact been revoked, he would have no surviving sensible interest in seeking to continue an appeal which he had earlier lodged against the certificate. However it is said for Ajouaou and F that they should not be deprived, by the Secretary of State's executive act of revocation, of the opportunity to establish in proceedings before SIAC that the certificate should never have been issued in the first place. Their chances of re-admission to the United Kingdom in the future might well be enhanced by a successful ex post facto appeal against the certificate. It is said also that the very issue of the certificate is a stigma, and the certificate's recipient is entitled, even after revocation, to seek to have his reputation cleared of it. Given the desire of Ajouaou and F to pursue their s.25 appeals from abroad for these reasons, SIAC had to decide a question going to their jurisdiction: did the Secretary of State's revocation of the certificates undercut the whole s.25 apparatus, so that there was nothing left against which to appeal and accordingly no jurisdiction to continue the appeal process? In fact (somewhat to the surprise of SIAC: see paragraph 9 of their open specific judgment in F's case) the Secretary of State was at one with the appellants in urging that the jurisdiction, and he has taken the same position in this court. However SIAC ruled that the revocation of the certificates deprived it of jurisdiction to continue to entertain the appeals. It gave reasons at paragraphs 8 – 14 in the open specific judgment in F's case and briefly at paragraphs 33 – 35 of the open generic judgment. We have to decide whether SIAC's conclusion is correct. 190. In both Ajouaou and F SIAC proceeded to consider the merits of the appeals, in case they were wrong on the jurisdiction issue. The Secretary of State's case against Ajouaou was that he had links with both the GIA and GSPC and was a close associate of extremists who themselves were linked with Al Qa'eda or Bin Laden; he had been involved in preparing or instigating acts of international terrorism by procuring high-tech equipment for the GSPC and/or Islamic extremists in Chechnya; and he had supported one or more extremist factions in Chechnya by his involvement in fraud which facilitated the provision of funds, and the storing and handling of propaganda videos promoting the jihad. And he was a close associate of Abu Doha. http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2004/1123.html 46/113