The claimant resisted his return to Albania after refusal of asylum. He asserted a well founded fear of perscution.
Held: The Tribunal summarised the position as follow: ‘(i) Protection offered by UNMIK arid KFOR is, in law, capable of being ‘the protection of his country’, within the meaning of Article IA(2) of the Convention, for a citizen of the Federal republic of Yugoslavia who comes from Kosovo.
(ii) Kosovo, however, is not capable of being the country of a person’s nationality within the meaning of that Article.
(iii) The ‘reversed burden’ in Arif applies only where it is accepted that the claimant was in the past a refugee, and is capable of being discharged by any evidence which could support a finding of a relevant change of circumstances.
(iv) No questions of ‘internal flight’, ‘reasonableness’, or ‘undue hardship’ arise when a person has no well-founded fear of persecution in his own home area.
(v) Article ID of the Convention does not apply to persons receiving assistance from UNMIK and KFOR.’
Judges:
Ockleton DP
Citations:
[2000] UKIAT 00001, [2000] INLR 372, [2000] Imm AR 652
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Immigration
Updated: 01 July 2022; Ref: scu.227123
