Case summaries
The Minister for Immigration and Asylum must, when making an assessment of whether the applicant is eligible for asylum where there is no internal protection alternative, take into consideration the general circumstances in that part of the country and the applicant’s personal circumstances at the time of the decision.
In its assessment of real risk of serious harm the CALL took into consideration the psychological circumstances of the applicant. The CALL considered that the seriousness of the applicant’s past traumatic experiences (as a child soldier) had left such psychological marks on him that a future forced enrolment in the army would be psychologically unbearable for him and would, in his case, amount to inhuman and degrading treatment.
There is not an internal armed conflict in Iraq. Also, the applicant has not shown that he is eligible for protection because of other severe conflict in the region.
The CALL ruled that for the recognition of subsidiary protection status (serious threat to a civilian’s life or person by reason of indiscriminate violence in situations of international or internal armed conflict), where doubt exists as to whether a person is a civilian or not, that person shall be considered to be a civilian.
The question as to whether or not an armed conflict existed has to be answered according to humanitarian law (common Art 3 of the Geneva Convention and the second additional protocol).
Honour-related violence should be examined in the context of grounds for protection and not humanitarian considerations. The Migration Court of Appeal also discussed the application of the benefit of the doubt.
Members of a family, who are Russian citizens of Chechen ethnicity, who originate from Chechnya, can avail of internal protection (in the context of persecution by non-state actors, Section 60 (1) sentence (4) (c) of the Residence Act in conjunction with Art 8 of the Qualification Directive) in areas outside Chechnya, if one family member (in this instance the wife) possesses a new Russian internal passport, which is an important requirement for registration.
Women who want to escape from a forced marriage, whose attitude is perceived by whole or part of the society of their country of origin as an infringement of the applicable customs and laws, and who therefore face a risk of persecution against which the authorities are unable or unwilling to provide protection, must be considered as members of a social group in the meaning of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Refugee Convention; when these conditions are not fulfilled, in particular when their behavior is not perceived as an infringement of the social order, these women nevertheless face the risk of suffering inhuman or degrading treatment and should therefore be granted subsidiary protection.
The court gave guidance for assessing whether the risk of suicide on removal would engage Art 3 of the European Convention on Human rights.