Case summaries

The French authorities’ failure to conduct an adequate inquiry into the Applicant’s medical evidence resulted their dismissal of the credibility of the Tamil applicant, who, according to the ECtHR, would face a real risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 if returned to Sri Lanka.

On the basis of personal circumstances and improvements in the general security situation in Mogadishu, the Applicant would not be at risk of treatment contrary to Articles 2 or 3 ECHR if deported from Sweden to Somalia.

This was a decision of the Polish Refugee Board of 29 August 2013 to uphold that part of the decision of the Head of the Polish Office for Foreigners which concerned refusal to accord refugee status and to overturn the remainder of the decision as well as to grant subsidiary protection.

The results of the linguistic analysis carried out by an external expert company should be assessed in the context of all the evidence gathered in the case, taking into account the principle of the benefit of doubt, also as regards establishing the country of origin.

Certain inaccuracies in the detail actually lend credibility to the testimony. This is evident particularly if one takes into account the fact that the foreign woman is a simple person without any education.

A bad situation in the country of origin does not constitute a sufficient intrinsic reason to accord refugee status or other forms of protection.

One cannot question the credibility of an applicant solely on the basis of a discrepancy between the information stated in the application and the information provided in subsequent stages of the proceedings.

The Minister based a subsidiary protection decision and deportation order examination on the premise that the Applicant was a Tanzanian national based on records that were provided by the UK Border Agency to that effect, in circumstances where the Applicant claimed that he was Somali; that the Tanzanian identity was false; and he claimed that two language reports which were supportive of his claim of Somali nationality and submitted in a separate application for a subsequent asylum claim should have been considered by the Minister in the making of his subsidiary protection and deportation decisions.

The High Court held that the language reports were added to the decision making process by virtue of being referenced in (but not attached to) correspondence concerning the subsidiary protection application and representations against deportation; that they were not considered by the Minister; and that the failure to do so breached the Applicant’s right to a fresh consideration of his credibility, and the Minister’s obligation to consider relevant facts.

Consequently the subsidiary protection decision and the deportation were quashed and remitted.

This case concerned the evidential standing in asylum hearings of linguistic analysis reports by the Swedish company SPRAKAB.

It must be noted that the Applicant’s occupation as a pharmacist meant that according to the country of origin information, he could be a target group for the country`s security forces if they suspected that assistance was being provided to the insurgents. This was considered to constitute the Applicant`s imputed political opinion to be taken into consideration in light of the right to asylum, in other words, circumstances to be considered pursuant to the Geneva Convention.

On the basis of the general situation in Afghanistan and the lack of cogent reasons to depart from the findings of fact of national courts, the applicants would not be at risk of treatment contrary to 3 ECHR if returned from the UK to Kabul (Afghanistan)

A Gambian asylum seeker’s account of approximately eight years’ imprisonment and torture there was not considered credible. The Immigration Service and the Helsinki Supreme Administrative Courtconsidered the application to be manifestly unfounded and  the Supreme Administrative Court did not give leave to appeal on the matter. The UN Committee against Torture had, however, requested that the Applicant   not be returned to his home country, The Gambia, until UNCAT had examined the complaint. 

The case concerns the examination of an asylum claim by the Austrian authorities and assessment of a real risk that the applicant would be subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3 of the ECHR if expelled to Russia.