Human Rights Watch and a proxy terror front group -Freedom from Torture, clamored that the flights should be suspended because some ‘ethnic’ Tamils were subjected to cruel treatment in the island nation. This is what the Sri Lankan government’s own Ministry of Defence has to say about the charity Freedom...
How many torture claims from returnees to Sri Lanka are necessary before the UKBA and the Courts decide that the time has come for review? This graph (click link to see further details) attempts to collate the data from recent reports and compare it against a broad pattern of removals...
Below is a list of materials which can be used in connection/in support of claims against decisions to remove on the charter flight(s) bound for Sri Lanka next week. The list will be updated as and when relevant materials are published and/or circulated, so watch this space. Not a comprehensive...
There are we understand two charter flights bound to Sri Lanka on the 19 and 20 September 2012. If detainees do not have solicitors then contact Janani Jananayagam from TAG [Tamils Against Genocide] who can be contacted on 07801 999130. She will direct detainees to solicitors who may be able...
The Court of Appeal’s judgement in KA (Afghanistan) & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 1014 makes it absolutely clear that the Secretary of State’s duty toward unaccompanied minors, in particular her duty to trace family members, is not discharged by giving them leave...
Recently the Law Society Gazette ran an article by Yewa Holiday, a barrister and a case review manager at the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which highlighted the plight of asylum seekers and refugees wrongly convicted after being advised to plead guilty to offences relating to their entry to the...
In the case of HJ (Iran) [2011] 1 AC 596 (post here) the Supreme Court held that self oppression can be persecution. To put it another way, being forced to conceal a Convention reason protected characteristic (sexuality, political opinion, religious faith and so on) would itself be persecutory. This self...
In the case of RT (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] UKSC 38 the Supreme Court has today held that asylum seekers cannot be expected to lie or dissemble in order to achieve safety in their own country. This principle applies equally to a committed political...
In a follow up to my last post on Country Guidance cases generally and the Court of Appeal judgment in SG (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 940, the existing Country Guidance case on Zimbawe, that of EM and Others (Returnees) Zimbabwe CG [2011]...
In the jurisprudential equivalent of Easyjet and Ryanair flights simultaneously arriving at Stansted from Alicante, Malaga AND Lanzarote, a number of important cases have just been deposited in the luggage carousel that is BAILII. School is now out and the legal bigwigs will shortly be decamping to Tuscany, or wherever...
The UK Border Agency will start x-raying children again from 29 March 2012 in order to determine their age. This practice is highly controversial. The letter announcing the resumption of this procedure can be found here. This brings to mind another example of the application of false quasi-scientific ‘certainty’ to...
As expected, the obscure but important Chapter 53 of the Enforcement Instructions and Guidance (‘Extenuating Circumstances’) has been amended following on from the scrapping of paragraph 395C of the Immigration Rules. The new text is basically in line with the amended rules and is set out below for reference. It...
This is the week in which Human Rights Watch reported that ‘Children deported to Kabul will face horrible risks‘ and Amnesty International reported that at least 28 children had died in the IDP camps around Kabul as result of the freezing winter conditions and lack of food. Yet to respond...
UPDATE: the order made by the Upper Tribunal is now available. A Tamil failed asylum seeker forcibly returned from the United Kingdom to Sri Lanka on 21 February 2012 has claimed that he was tortured on arrival. He was later interviewed by British officials. A medical examination arranged by the...
The latest Country Guidance case on Zimbabwe finds, in essence, that despite vociferous and violent pronouncements about homosexuality at the highest level in that country, Zimbabwe is a safe haven for lesbians and gays. The case is LZ (homosexuals) Zimbabwe CG [2011] UKUT 00487 (IAC) and it was reported on...
Lord Justice Ward is at it again: This is another of those frustrating appeals which characterise – and, some may even think, disfigure – certain aspects of the work in the immigration field. Here we have one of those whirligig cases where an asylum seeker goes up and down on...
In the case of NS v UK (C-411/10) (see here for FM’s earlier alerter post), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) held that the transfer of an asylum-seeker from one EU Member State to another under the Dublin II regulation is not permitted where a failing asylum...
The Court of Appeal last week handed down a very interesting judgment on the need for ‘proper argument’ in Country Guidance cases, the obligation on the tribunal itself to seek to secure that proper argument and how far the tribunal determination process can morph from an adversarial to an inquisitorial...
The Swiss Federal Administrative Court has addressed risk to Sri Lankan Tamils facing enforced removal in a new judgment recently reported by UNHCR. The judgment is in French but the UNHCR summary in English states as follows: [P]olitical opponents, critical journalists, human rights activists, critical NGO representatives, as well as...
EDIT 14/12/11: Treasury Solicitor letter to High Court regarding charter flight can be found here. Question: Who said this? We will continue to investigate any credible and relevant allegations and review our policy in light of any findings. Answer: Alistair Burt, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Afghanistan/South Asia, counter terrorism/proliferation,...
After FM questioned his will to live following this analysis of the judgment in Sapkota v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 1320 I volunteered to have a read through the UNHCR and Asylum Aid joint study Mapping Statelessness in the UK. A full copy of...
The controversial Country Guideline case of HM and Others (Article 15(c)) Iraq CG [2010] UKUT 331 (IAC) has been quashed by the Court of Appeal. See the order here. The case of HM should no longer be followed as paragraph 2 of the order provides that: determination of the IAC...
After what felt like something of a hiatus early in the year, the tribunal has been churning out new reported cases in recent months as if there was no tomorrow. As far as I know no-one has suggested scrapping the Immigration and Asylum Chamber YET, although it is surely only...
I have seen many country of origin information (COI) reports in my time, and I am generally a big fan of them, but the current UK Border Agency one on Sri Lanka is genuinely shocking. The COI unit at the Agency asked the British High Commission to make some enquiries...
Pierce Glynn and Stephen Knaffler QC have broadened the path (pun intended*) with SL and Westminster City Council (The Medical Foundation and Mind intervening) [2011] EWCA Civ 954. The case concerns a failed asylum seeker who, following a period as street homeless and a suicide attempt, was admitted to hospital...
R (on the application of Elayathamby) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWHC 2182 (Admin) (11 August 2011) The case concerned a challenge to the removal of a mandate refugee to the Republic of Cyprus under the Dublin Regulations II. In a judgment by Mr Justice Sales,...
The Chief Inspector of UKBA, John Vine, two weeks ago released a new report on the use of country information by the UK Border Agency in asylum claims. I’ve been too busy to finish writing about it, unfortunately, and am still catching up on various things that have happened recently....
The UK Border Agency can be very generous and understanding when it wants to be. For some reason, Libyans currently in the UK whose visas are running out are being told that they don’t need to meet the rules required for an extension, they don’t need the right evidence and...
Another series of edictsreported cases has been handed down by the Upper Tribunal. Official headnotes and links to the BAILII judgments are included below. I’ve also thrown in another couple of cases that slipped out since the last big batch. We have two Country Guideline cases. The first, ST, is...
The legal luggage carousel of the tribunal’s reporting committee has deposited a large batch of new cases in the arrivals hall of BAILII. Some of these cases are interesting, others perhaps a little less so. The more interesting include a couple of cases on the availability of funds in Tier...
The cases of Sufi and Elmi v UK (Applications nos. 8319/07 and 11449/07) have been allowed by the European Court of Human Rights. This is a major judgment on return to Somalia and the conditions there. The press release can be found here and the judgment here (Word version here, BAILII version...
Further to Shivani’s last post on this, the numbers facing removal on the charter flight to Sri Lanka are lower than originally thought, although it still constitutes a mass removal. Evidence of other breaches of confidentiality in Sri Lankan asylum cases is emerging. These could be isolated mistakes or there...
An investigation is required as a matter of extreme urgency into an accepted breach of confidentiality in respect of the case of a Sri Lankan Tamil woman detained by the UKBA and pending removal to Sri Lanka on 16 June 2011. It is important to stress that UKBA do not...
Last weekend I finally read the Refugee Council report Lives in the Balance: The quality of immigration legal advice given to separated children seeking asylum. It is a short, sharp, very depressing but absolutely essential read for any solicitors, OISC advisers or barristers representing separated children in the asylum process....
Ever since the mysterious disappearance of the IAA Gender Guidelines from the old IAA website, there has been an absence of good guidance to immigration judges on gender issues in an immigration context. The Equal Treatment Benchbook has a very good chapter on women and equality generally but it does...
The Court of Appeal shows its despair at the immigration tribunal in the case of RM (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 428 (13 April 2011). All three judges lament the fact that they have to remit the case back to the tribunal for...
Firstly, I should apologise for getting behind with my updates. I have nominally been on holiday this last week and my internet connection, perhaps fortuitously for my holiday, died unexpectedly half way through. Briefly, we have seen a major judgment from the Supreme Court on detention issues and a major...
A slightly belated post to highlight another important decision of the Court of Appeal that will have relevance to both immigration and family law practitioners. R (FZ) v London Borough of Croydon [2011] EWCA Civ 59 concerns age dispute assessments and has set further guidance on a) how procedurally speaking...
