When assessing the propriety of an order requiring an asylum seeker to be removed and returned to a third country, it was wrong to look at the processes which might be applied by that third country. The court should look at the outcome of the decision and the test laid down, namely whether that third … Continue reading Regina (Yogathas) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: CA 9 Sep 2001
The applicant for asylum was a Tamil. He was persecuted. He claimed it was political. The possibility of drawing that inference was greater when legal mis-treatment was not expected to be followed by legal proceedings. Excessive or arbitrary punishment for political offences did not necessarily amount to persecution for a Convention reason, but it did … Continue reading Sivakumar v Secretary of State for the Home Department: CA 24 Jul 2001
When asking whether it was correct to certify the removal of an asylum seeker to a third country, in the light of a country’s compliance with the Convention, the issue should be approached in an intensely practical fashion. The question was not primarily whether the third country’s laws were compliant, but rather what was the … Continue reading Regina on the Application of Santia Yogathas v Secretary of State for Home Department: Admn 25 May 2001
(Australia) A claim to refugee status was made by a husband and wife who had come from China to Australia. They said that they feared sterilization under the ‘one child policy’ of China if they were returned. Held: There is a general principle that there can only be a ‘particular social group’ within the Convention … Continue reading A v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs and Another: 1997
Even the justified fears of being stoned to death for adultery did not create a particular separate group from which protection from persecution could be claimed in support of an application for asylum. A ‘social group’ for refugee applicants, had to share common uniting characteristic which set that group apart from rest of that society. … Continue reading Regina v Immigration Appeal Tribunal Secretary of State for Home Department ex parte Shah and Others: CA 23 Jul 1997
A wife, afraid with cause of being stoned to death for adultery if she returned home, was part of ‘a particular social group’ within the Convention, and was entitled to claim asylum. Commenting on the unique complexity of such cases: ‘Its adjudication is not a conventional lawyer’s exercise of applying a legal litmus test to … Continue reading Regina v Immigration Appeal Tribunal, Secretary of State for Home Department ex parte Shah: Admn 25 Oct 1996
Both applicants, Islam and Shah, citizens of Pakistan, but otherwise unconnected with each other, had suffered violence in Pakistan after being falsely accused them of adultery. Both applicants arrived in the UK and were granted leave to enter as visitors for six months. Both applicants subsequently applied for asylum on the ground that having been … Continue reading Regina v Immigration Appeal Tribunal and Another ex parte Shah: HL 25 Mar 1999
When considering the fear of prosecution in an applicant for asylum, the degree of persecution expected from individuals outside the government was to be assessed in the context also of the attitude of the government of the country to such persecution, and the level of protection it was prepared to offer. The failure of state … Continue reading Horvath v Secretary of State for the Home Department: HL 7 Jul 2000
Where a conscientious civil servant was threatened by insurgents who sought to persuade her to use her position to their advantage, but that civil servants could not expected to receive the protection of her estate from such insurgents, the Convention would give her protection as a refugee for asylum. The position of government employees in … Continue reading Noune v Secretary of State for the Home Department: CA 20 Dec 2000
A fear of persecution which was justified only historically, was insufficient to justify an asylum claim. The applicant must show justification for contemporary fears. The applicant had been granted exceptional leave to remain in the UK, but wanted full refugee status because of the additional rights that would bring. In each case an applicant had … Continue reading Adan v Secretary of State for the Home Department: HL 6 Apr 1998
The Convention gave protection to an asylum seeker fearing persecution by non-state agents in his country of origin where that government was unable or unwilling to provide protection. France and Germany did not recognise this right, and therefore . .
