Quijano v Secretary of State for the Home Department

For refugee status based on membership of a particular social group, a family may qualify as such a group. The feared persecution must nevertheless be because the claimant belongs to that group, rather than because the group is connected with a person targeted for a non-Convention reason. Threats against relatives in retaliation for a stepfather’s refusal to deal with a drugs cartel did not amount to persecution for reasons of family membership. The judges differed on whether civil or political status is an essential feature of a particular social group. The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant, a Colombian national, claimed asylum after alleged attacks by a drugs cartel against his family following his stepfather’s refusal to trade with it. The Special Adjudicator rejected his evidence. The Immigration Appeal Tribunal accepted that the factual findings could not stand but dismissed the appeal on the legal ground that, even if the facts were proved, no Convention claim arose. The central issues were whether family membership constituted membership of a particular social group and whether persecution directed at family members in retaliation for a non-Convention act was persecution for reasons of that membership.

The appeal was dismissed unanimously on the result, although the judges gave differing reasons on the civil or political status issue.

1. Article 1A(2) of the Geneva Convention required the feared persecution to be for reasons of membership of a particular social group. The statutory appeal arose under section 8(1) of the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993.
2. Thorpe LJ treated membership of a family as capable of constituting membership of a particular social group. Applying the principles in Secretary of State v Savchenkov [1996] Imm AR 28, he regarded civil or political status as a sensible and necessary aid to identifying a particular group. That element would commonly be easier to establish where the State was the persecutor, and harder where the harm resulted from criminal activity, unless the State colluded with it.
3. The decisive issue was causation. The feared persecution arose from the stepfather’s refusal to deal with the cartel and its subsequent decision to retaliate against persons related to him. That relationship was fortuitous and incidental. The persecution was not because the appellant belonged to the Martinez family as a social group.
4. Morritt J agreed that a family could be a social group and that family membership was capable of being particular. He did not regard the civil or political status requirement as part of the ratio in Savchenkov or as a necessary condition. He nevertheless concluded that the appellant’s fear was caused by his relationship with the stepfather, not by membership of the family group. Roch J considered that persecution had to be directed against the family as such. He subscribed to the Savchenkov formulation but regarded the status issue as unnecessary to decide.
5. The contrary view expressed by Laws J in Ex Parte de Melo was not followed. The appellant therefore had no Convention claim on the assumed facts.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Appeal dismissed.
• Immigration Appeal Tribunal: In July 1996, accepted that the Special Adjudicator’s findings could not stand but dismissed the appeal on the legal ground that the assumed facts did not establish a Convention claim.
• Special Adjudicator: In April 1996, dismissed the appeal after rejecting the appellant’s evidence and that of his brother.