New Video - Upper Tribunal (IAC) Reported Decisions: May 2020
In this series I summarise the reported decisions of the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber for 2020 tackling them a month at a time. In this video I look at the reported decisions for May 2020 on Afghanistan, Home Office policies and the Fee Waiver Guidance. The citations and links are below. I will put a copy of my slides on the No8 Chambers’ website.
AS (Safety of Kabul) Afghanistan (CG) [2020] UKUT 130 (IAC) (1 May 2020)
Risk on return to Kabul from the Taliban
(i) A person who is of lower-level interest for the Taliban (i.e. not a senior government or security services official, or a spy) is not at real risk of persecution from the Taliban in Kabul.
Risk of serious harm in Kabul
(ii) There is widespread and persistent conflict-related violence in Kabul. However, the proportion of the population affected by indiscriminate violence is small and not at a level where a returnee, even one with no family or other network and who has no experience living in Kabul, would face a serious and individual threat to their life or person by reason of indiscriminate violence.
Reasonableness of internal relocation to Kabul
(iii) Having regard to the security and humanitarian situation in Kabul as well as the difficulties faced by the population living there (primarily the urban poor but also IDPs and other returnees, which are not dissimilar to the conditions faced throughout many other parts of Afghanistan) it will not, in general, be unreasonable or unduly harsh for a single adult male in good health to relocate to Kabul even if he does not have any specific connections or support network in Kabul and even if he does not have a Tazkera.
(iv) However, the particular circumstances of an individual applicant must be taken into account in the context of conditions in the place of relocation, including a person’s age, nature and quality of support network/connections with Kabul/Afghanistan, their physical and mental health, and their language, education and vocational skills when determining whether a person falls within the general position set out above. Given the limited options for employment, capability to undertake manual work may be relevant.
(v) A person with a support network or specific connections in Kabul is likely to be in a more advantageous position on return, which may counter a particular vulnerability of an individual on return. A person without a network may be able to develop one following return. A person’s familiarity with the cultural and societal norms of Afghanistan (which may be affected by the age at which he left the country and his length of absence) will be relevant to whether, and if so how quickly and successfully, he will be able to build a network.
Previous Country Guidance
(vi) The country guidance in AK (Article 15(c)) Afghanistan CG [2012] UKUT 163 (IAC) in relation to Article 15(c) of the Qualification Directive remains unaffected by this decision.
(vii) The country guidance in AK (Article 15(c)) Afghanistan CG [2012] UKUT 163 (IAC) in relation to the (un)reasonableness of internal relocation to Kabul (and other potential places of internal relocation) for certain categories of women remains unaffected by this decision.
(viii) The country guidance in AA (unattended children) Afghanistan CG [2012] UKUT 16 (IAC) also remains unaffected by this decision.
BH (policies/information: SoS's duties) Iraq [2020] UKUT 189 (IAC) (14 May 2020)
(a) The Secretary of State has a duty to reach decisions that are in accordance with her policies in the immigration field. Where there appears to be a policy that is not otherwise apparent and which may throw doubt on the Secretary of State's case before the tribunal, she is under a duty to make a relevant policy known to the Tribunal, whether or not the policy is published and so available in the public domain. Despite their expertise, judges in the Immigration and Asylum Chambers cannot reasonably be expected to possess comprehensive knowledge of each and every policy of the Secretary of State in the immigration field.
(b) In protection appeals (and probably in other kinds of immigration appeals), the Secretary of State has a duty not to mislead, which requires her to draw attention to documents etc under her control or in the possession of another government department, which are not in the public domain, and which she knows or ought to know undermine or qualify her case.
(c) There is a clear distinction between information and policy: the fact that country information is contained in a COI (country of origin) document published by the Secretary of State does not, without more, make that information subject to the duty in sub-paragraph (a) above.
The Secretary of State’s Fee Waiver Guidance, version 3, was unlawful because it failed properly to reflect the settled test, of whether the applicant is able to afford the fee.