a) The risk categories identified in LP (LTTE area – Tamils – Colombo – risk) Sri Lanka CG [2007] UKAIT 00076 and approved by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in NA v UK, App.no. 25904/07, remain valid.
b) Events since the military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009 have not aggravated the likely approach of the Sri Lankan authorities to returned failed asylum seekers who are Tamils; if anything the level of interest in them has decreased. The principal focus of the authorities continues to be, not Tamils from the north (or east) as such, but persons considered to be either LTTE members, fighters or operatives or persons who have played an active role in the international procurement network responsible for financing the LTTE and ensuring it was supplied with arms.
c) The records the Sri Lanka authorities keep on persons with some history of arrest and detention have become increasingly sophisticated; their greater accuracy is likely to reduce substantially the risk that a person of no real interest to the authorities would be arrested or detained.
d) The practice of immigration judges and others of referring to ‘objective country evidence’, when all they mean is background country evidence, should cease, since it obscures the need for the decision-maker to subject such evidence to scrutiny to see if it conforms to legal standards for assessing the quality of Country of Origin Information (COI) as identified by the ECtHR in NA and as set out in the Refugee Qualification Directive (2004/83/EC), Article 4(1), 4(3)(a), 4(5),4(5)(a) and 4(5)(c) and the Procedures Directive (2005)85/EC), Article 8(2)(a)and (b) and 8(3).
Carnwath LJ SPT, Ockleton DP, Storey SIJ
[2009] UKAIT 00049
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 14 June 2021; Ref: scu.384469
