Extra Division, Inner House – The applicant sought leave to appeal against a decision of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal rejecting his appeals. The latter decision dismissed the applicant’s appeal against a decision of the respondent, the Home Secretary which refused to grant the applicant asylum or humanitarian protection and determined that he should be removed from the United Kingdom as an illegal immigrant.
The applicant claimed before the tribunal that requiring him to leave the United Kingdom . . would be a breach of the United Kingdom’s obligations under the Geneva Convention of 1951 relating to the Status of Refugees, as amended by the protocol to the Convention 1967 (collectively the Refugee Convention) and would be unlawful under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998, as being incompatible with the appellant’s rights under the 1950 Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR).
Lord Clarke said: ‘While UNHCR decisions as to status . . have no binding legal effect, they are to be treated with great respect in the interests of legal diplomacy and comity having regard to their source. The mind of the decision maker, in this jurisdiction, where an applicant can lay claim to UNHCR status, as a given datism, must in its decision making process not lose sight of that fact in reaching its disposal of the case before it. A decision of the UNHCR on refugee status will be a very important piece of evidence throughout the decision maker’s journey. But it has ultimately no greater claim than that and, if the other material before the decision maker leads him/her to considerations that point cogently against the conclusion arrived at by the UNHCR, then the decision maker is fully justified in departing from the latter conclusion.’
Lady Paton, Lord Clarke, Lord Emslie
[2011] ScotCS CSIH – 28, 2011 GWD 14-344, 2011 SLT 706, [2011] CSIH 28
Bailii
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 103B, Geneva Convention of 1951 relating to the Status of Refugees, European Convention on Human Rights
Scotland
Cited by:
Leave – IA (Iran) v The Secretary of State for The Home Department (Scotland) SC 29-Jan-2014
The appellant Iranian challenged refusal of his claim for asylum. He had been granted refugee status in Iraq and in Turkey by the United Nations commission, but on arrival in the UK, his asylum claim had been rejected on the basis of the credibility . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 08 October 2021; Ref: scu.431765