Category Archives: Asylum

Do public disagreements between Zimbabwean focused human/civil rights protest groups in the UK help the genuinely active Zimbabwean asylum claimant?

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I have always admired and continue to admire the various Zimbabwean focused human rights and civil society organisations active in protest in the UK advocating for positive change in Zimbabwe.  Whether or not the UK based activity emanates from well-established groups, newly formed ones  or even  via emergence of  social  media based activity,  the efforts are admirable nonetheless.

 

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Court of Appeal approves country guidance CM( Zimbabwe) and advocates less restrictive approach to Article 3 claims

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In The Secretary of State for the Home Department v MM (Zimbabwe) [2017] EWCA Civ 797 (22 June 2017),  the Court of Appeal very recently  sought to advocate a less restrictive approach  to an Article 3 mental health condition claim from a Zimbabwean national,  yet  within its judgment,  glaringly  fails to  refer to the ECHR case of Paposhvili, from which that approach can arguably be said  to originate from.

 

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How the Secretary of State got the law horribly wrong: Seeking to apply refugee cessation provisions to a Zimbabwean non-refugee deportee

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“This is a case in which the legal analysis proposed by the Secretary of State became confused at an early stage and was never reviewed and rectified. It also became procedurally very messy”,  so said the Court of Appeal in The Secretary of State for the Home Department v Mosira [2017] EWCA Civ 407 (08 June 2017).

By not paying proper regard to fundamentals so as to advance a  tactful  and relevant  legal analysis approach  from the very start,  stemming from  the very decision to cease refugee status, the  Secretary of State  woefully missed out on an opportunity to  deport a Zimbabwean national who  had never been granted  refugee status but rather was conferred it on a technicality for the purposes of family re-unification.

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Inbuilt obstacles and mechanisms that the Home Office use to defeat, deny and deter immigration claims

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On the surface, all that is required to enable preparation and submission of a successful application to the Home Office is self-evident.  After all, the application forms themselves are free and readily accessible (postal or on-line, as relevant). These applications forms indicate what documents are required to support an application. Additionally, voluminous Home Office guidance policy is transparently available for leisurely perusal in advance of submitting an application. With all this in sight, in some categories, it seems there  isn’t even any need to consult a legal practitioner prior to submission of an application.

 

There are however in-built laws, policies and procedures in the assessment process of immigration applications, such that a seemingly straightforward application may end up falling foul of these provisions.

 

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Clearly unfounded claims and the two stage reasoning process: Section 94 Certification policy updated following FR & KL 2016

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On 12 April 2017, the Home Office’s  Section 94 Certification Policy Guidance was updated  in order to, “provide further clarification of when to certify a human rights claim and to reflect the need to give reasoning when certifying a claim as set out in FR & KL (2016) v SSHD EWC CIV”.(Certification of protection and human rights claims under section 94 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (clearly unfounded claims).

 

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