Case summaries
This case concerned the assessment of the option of internal relocation within Sierra Leone in the context of a threat from a family member. The Court found that, provided that regard has been had to relevant country of origin information, there is no obligation on the decision-maker under Article 8.2 of the Qualification Directive to seek out specific information on general economic and social conditions in a proposed site of re-location in the absence of any specific objection on that basis being put forward by the asylum seeker.
In this case the Tribunal sought to apply the guidance in Elgafaji on Art 15(c) and give country guidance on Afghanistan.
The decision of the asylum authority was annulled on the basis that there was insufficient evidence that an internal protection alternative existed.
This case concerned the criteria that needed to be fulfilled in order to establish the existence of an internal armed conflict. It was held that in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, at the time of this decision, a state of internal armed conflict was found to exist without an internal protection alternative. The applicant was therefore considered in need of protection.
Internal protection has to be assessed in accordance with the Qualification Directive, and under very strict criteria. The possibility of relocating to another part of the country has to be available to the applicant and the protection has to be effective.
A serious and individual threat to life and limb may result from a general risk in the context of an armed conflict if the risk is enhanced because of the applicant’s individual circumstances or from an extraordinary situation which is characterised by such a high degree of risk that practically any civilian would be exposed to a serious and individual threat simply by his or her presence in the affected region.
In this case the Court of Appeal considered the interpretation of Art 15 (c) of the Qualification Directive applying the decision of the CJEU in Elgafaji (C-465/07; 17 February, 2009).
It is lawful to refer an ethnic Armenian applicant from Chechnya to internal protection in other regions of the Russian Federation.
Asylum applicants who have already been subject to persecution also benefit from the facilitated standard of proof of Art 4.4 of the Qualification Directive in the course of the examination of whether an internal protection alternative is available to them.