Category Archives: Appeals

New Iraq Country Information Notes: Current key considerations in claims for Humanitarian Protection

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An updated Country Information Note on Iraq has now been published: Country policy and information note: security and humanitarian situation, Iraq, November 2018, Version 5.0, 19 November 2018.  This is to be considered in conjunction with the Note published last month: Country policy and information note: internal relocation, civil documentation and returns, Iraq, October 2018.

 

Relevant County Guidance caselaw and other   pertinent cases remain the following:

 

 

Relevant previous blog posts:

 

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Straightjacket effect of MS(Pakistan): The problem of the First Tier Tribunal’s restricted approach to negative trafficking decisions

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Would the Tribunal have found themselves in the straight jacket that the Court of Appeal has clothed it with had the Upper Tribunal not “exceeded it’s jurisdiction” or “ overreached itself” as concluded by the Court in The Secretary of State for the Home Department v MS (Pakistan) [2018] EWCA Civ 594?

 

The appeal in MS in the Court of Appeal raised an issue of principle as to the jurisdiction of the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal on a statutory appeal under section 84 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 Act to undertake an indirect judicial review of a negative trafficking decision made by the Secretary of State in that individual’s case. In that context, the appeal was noted to concern the scope and effect of the previous decision of the Court of Appeal in AS (Afghanistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWCA Civ 1469.

 

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The Preliminary Information Questionnaire: Are we headed back to an increased use of non-compliance based asylum refusal decisions?

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The SEF is back! Not as we know it, but under the guise of the Preliminary Information Questionnaire(PIQ). The Home Office have in recent weeks been sending out the questionnaire to a good number of adults who have claimed asylum, been screened but are yet to be substantively interviewed.

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Just when the Home Office thought Iraqi protection claims were well and truly buried, resurrection emanates from the Upper Tribunal

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The Home Office has for well over a year been angling to throw a spanner in the works so far as continued reliance upon the guidance flowing from AA (Article 15(c)) ( Iraq CG [2015] UKUT 544 (IAC) is concerned.   The Secretary of State’s general position as set out in currently published Country Information Notes is that the security situation in Iraq has significantly improved. As is clear from those Notes, he has persistently sought to consign to the legal dustbin, the viability of continued reliance upon AA (Iraq )2015.

 

The Secretary of State’s currently published Information Notes on Iraq have been intended to bury the effect of AA(Iraq)2015, which has opened the doorway to a good number of Iraqi claimants succeeding in the Tribunal in their claims for protection owing to the security conditions in Iraq.

 

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GUEST BLOG by Counsel, Becket Bedford: Ahmed, JK v Sweden and the burden and standard of proof

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In the Court of Appeal, verification by the State of documentary or other evidence is sometimes, but rarely, required to assist an applicant to establish his claim: see MA (Bangladesh) v SSHD [2016] EWCA Civ 175 at §29; PJ (Sri Lanka) v SSHD [2015] 1 WLR 1322 at §29, explaining and confirming the Tribunal decisions in Ahmed v SSHD [2002] Imm AR 318; MJ v SSHD [2013] Imm AR 799; and NA v SSHD [2014] UKUT 205.

 

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Tribunal’s jurisdiction: Appreciating when and how to tactfully raise a New Matter in an appeal

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Nothing deflates an Appellant more than leaving an appeal venue without their substantive appeal having been heard by a Tribunal Judge.  Such a situation can arise where a Tribunal Judge cannot consider a raised  new matter not previously considered by the Home Office unless the Secretary of State has given consent for the Tribunal to do so.

 

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