Case summaries

The refusal to grant residence permit and the subsequent return order were issued without a hearing. Although a hearing in administrative procedures initiated by the applicant is not always required, the Court found that the hearing would have led to a well-rounded and more substantial review of his right to remain under a different type of residence permit, as well as any factors precluding his return.

Requests for family reunification must be examined even if the third-country national, who is a family member of an EU citizen who has never exercised his right of freedom of movement, is subject to an entry ban. Whether there is a relationship of dependency between the third-country national and the EU citizen and whether public policy grounds justify the entry ban must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

An asylum applicant who was a victim of previous persecution in their country of origin can be granted refugee status under article 1, C 5) of the Geneva Convention. This is because, due to the severity of the treatment applied, the applicant’s fear is exacerbated to such an extent that, even if the persecution has ceased to exist, a return to the country of origin would be unthinkable. 

This case dealt with the issue of whether the Supreme Court’s four-stage test for the determination of sexual orientation asylum claims, set out in HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (“HJ (Iran)”), still held good, specifically the third and fourth stages which draw the distinction between those who would conceal their sexual orientation and whether the material reason for that is fear of persecution or for other reasons.
 

The High Court in this case focused on two questions: 1) whether the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s (RAT) finding of a lack of a Convention nexus was valid, given the evidence before it, and 2) whether the RAT’s finding that the persecution faced by the applicant in the past does not amount to “compelling reasons” meriting a grant of refugee status was valid. The Court agreed with the Tribunal Member on the second question, finding that she had appropriately evaluated the applicant’s circumstances in light of the relevant guidelines, case law and evidence in rejecting the applicant’s claim for protection based on past persecution. However, the Court ultimately quashed the RAT’s decision in its findings on the first question, deducing that the RAT had failed to address all relevant aspects of the country of origin information that had been submitted by the applicant.

This case dealt with the issue of whether the Secretary of State’s certification of the asylum claims of the two independent applicants as “clearly unfounded” was flawed on public law grounds, and the important difference between a decision on refugee status itself and a decision on a claim being “clearly unfounded”.
 

The Royal Decree of 11th May 2015 was quashed to the extent that it included Albania in the list of "safe" countries for the purposes of article 57/6/1, paragraph 4, of the law of 15th December 1980.

The Returns Directive does not preclude domestic legislation which provides for a prison sentence as a criminal law penalty for non-EU citizens who unlawfully re-enter the country in breach of an entry ban.

The High Court approved of the claimant asylum seekers' and the defendant Secretary of State's consent order for settlement. The defendant accepted responsibility for failing to remove the claimants from the DFT, despite indicators that they were vulnerable and not suited to the DFT, and for failing to inform them about the National Referral Mechanism (NRM).

The European Court of Human Rights held that the removal of an Albanian national from Switzerland to Albania would not violate his right to family life.