Guidance applying to all cases in the UTIAC issued by Mr Justice Lane
The Honourable Mr Justice Lane, the President of the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber), yesterday issued new guidance on electronic bundles and filing documents electronically via HM Courts & Tribunals' CE-File system.
The originally guidance is available here and a full copy is reproduced below:
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UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
GUIDANCE NOTE ON CE-FILE AND ELECTRONIC BUNDLES
INTRODUCTION
1. This note contains guidance (issued under paragraph 7 of schedule 4 to the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007) for users of the Upper Tribunal (IAC) on two separate but related matters. The first part concerns the introduction of electronic filing via the CE-file system. The second concerns the filing of bundles by electronic means, including email and CE-file. The guidance applies to all cases in the UTIAC, whether it is sitting in its appellate or judicial review capacity.
CE-FILE
2. CE-File is the online system for filing documents electronically in the UTIAC for appeals and judicial reviews.
3. From 17 January 2022, CE-File will be a method permitted under rule 13(1)(c) of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008 ("the Rules") for documents to be filed with the UTIAC by parties and their representatives. IMPORTANT: CE-File MUST NOT at present be used for making urgent applications for interim relief in judicial reviews. Such applications must continue to be made by email to UTIACJudicialReviewApplications@justice.gov.uk as explained on forms UTIAC4 and UTIAC5 and at Apply for a judicial review in an immigration or asylum case – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
4. Any application for permission to appeal, which is (i) made to the UTIAC; or (ii) granted by the First-tier Tribunal on or after that day will be assigned a CE reference, as will any application for judicial review made on or after that day.
5. CE file references are in the form JR-2021-LON-XXXX or UI-2021-XXXX. Those references will be used in addition to the IAC's conventional references for appeals and judicial reviews.
REGISTERING FOR AND USING CE-FILE
6. To use CE-File to file and receive documents electronically, you must first register as an E-Filer by following the instructions described at E-Filing – Login (cefile-app.com)
7. Users of CE-file should continue to send a copy of any document they upload to CE-file to the other party by post, email or by hand. It should not be assumed that any document uploaded to CE-File will be sent by the Upper Tribunal to the other party, unless it is a document which the Rules specifically require the Upper Tribunal to send (such as a response to a notice of appeal under rule 24). Users must therefore continue to comply with rule 28A(2)(a) in judicial review proceedings, by providing a copy of an application for judicial review, and any accompanying documents, to each person named in the application as a respondent or interested party and filing with the Tribunal a completed Form UTIAC2 (Statement of service).
8. Where a party or representative chooses to use CE-File to send documents to the Tribunal, they will be regarded, for the purposes of rule 13(2) of the Rules, as providing details of CE-File as a means of electronic transmission of documents to them by the Tribunal. That means the party or representative must also accept delivery of documents by CE-File from the Tribunal as required by rule 13(2).
9. The Tribunal will use CE-File to send and deliver documents to all registered users in connection with their active CE-File cases.
10. Parties who register for CE-File may decide at any time that they will no longer accept receipt of documents in this manner by notifying the Tribunal and all other parties. Parties should be aware that it may take the Tribunal up to 7 days to process this notification.
11. Where a party or representative has registered to use CE-File, they may also request the Tribunal to send them a hard copy of documents delivered by CEFile as provided by rule 13(4). They must make such a request in writing as soon as reasonably practicable after receiving the document via CE-file.
12. The Tribunal may also request hard copies (or duplicates) of anything filed by CE-File.
BUNDLES
13. Electronic bundles must be prepared as follows and be suitable for use with all of Adobe Acrobat Reader, PDF Expert and PDF Xchange Editor.
14. A bundle which is sent by email must not exceed 20MB. A bundle which is uploaded to CE-File must not exceed 50MB. If the bundle is larger than this it must be split into the fewest number of sections and a note made in the comments box to show that this has occurred. Each part of a split bundle should be numbered sequentially ("Appellant's Supplementary Bundle Part 1, 2, 3," for example).
15. Any electronic bundle (whether or not it is placed on CE-File) must be paginated in ascending order from start to finish. The first page of the PDF will be numbered "1", and so on. If a bundle has to be split because it exceeds the maximum megabyte size for electronic transmission, the numbering must ignore the split. Index pages must be numbered as part of the document, they are not to be skipped. The pagination of any hard copy of the bundle must correspond exactly with the pagination of the PDF.
16. Wherever possible, pagination should be computer-generated; if this is not possible, pagination must be in typed form.
17. The index page must be hyperlinked to the pages or documents it refers to.
18. The bookmarks must be hyperlinked and labelled indicating what document they are referring to (it is best to have the same name or title as the actual document) and also display the relevant page numbers.
19. All bundles must be text-based, not a scan of a hard copy bundle. If documents within a bundle have been scanned, optical character recognition should be undertaken on the bundle before it is lodged. The text within the bundle must therefore be selectable as text, to facilitate highlighting and copying.
20. Any document in landscape format must be rotated so that it can be read from left to right.
21. The display view size of all pages must always be 100%.
22. The resolution on the electronic bundle must be reduced to about 200-300 dpi to prevent delays whilst scrolling from one page to another.
23. An electronic bundle filed by a litigant in person must, if at all possible, comply with the above. If it is not possible for a litigant in person to comply, he or she must include a brief explanation of the reasons why.
24. For all hearings except Case Management Review hearings, the parties must provide paper copies of the hearing bundle, unless otherwise directed. 25. Any draft orders or directions must be sent as a Microsoft Word file, so as to assist the judge or lawyer in reviewing, editing and approving them.
FURTHER INFORMATION AND GUIDANCE
26. Further information and guidance about the operation of CE-File, as it already applies in some courts and tribunals, can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hmcts-e-filing-service-for-citizens-and-professionals.
27. A list of Frequently Asked Questions is also available at FAQs on using the Courts Electronic Filing System (CE-File) | Practical Law (thomsonreuters.com)
28. For further assistance with CE, contact the support team on EfileSupport@justice.gov.uk
The Hon. Mr Justice Lane
President of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
14 January 2022