Mhute v Secretary of State for the Home Department

An asylum and Article 3 removal claim requires an individual assessment of whether the particular claimant faces a real risk of persecution or serious ill-treatment on return. General evidence of grave political violence, and an administrative suspension of removals following UNHCR advice, do not themselves establish refugee status or determine the human-rights issue.

The claimant's political profile, past treatment, ability to leave the country and the reason why the authorities might identify her as an opponent remain material. General country evidence must be given proper weight, but it cannot displace findings that the individual claimant has not shown a well-founded fear of persecution.

The appellant, a Zimbabwean citizen and low-profile member of the Liberty Party, claimed asylum and contended that removal would breach Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Secretary of State refused the claims. An Adjudicator dismissed both appeals on 8 August 2001, and the Immigration Appeal Tribunal dismissed a further appeal by a determination promulgated on 26 July 2002.

Permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal was confined to the Tribunal's treatment of UNHCR material concerning returns to Zimbabwe. A later UNHCR letter, supplied only after the Tribunal's substantive determination, stated that conditions had not substantially changed from an earlier statement before the Tribunal. The central issue was whether that material or the general risk to political opponents required a different assessment of this appellant's personal risk.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. Lord Justice Simon Brown held that, even if the later UNHCR letter were given full weight, it did not undermine the Tribunal's conclusion that this appellant faced no real risk on return. Lord Justice Ward agreed. The Master of the Rolls likewise found no error of law in the Tribunal's conclusion.

2. The Court did not decide whether the June 2002 letter, first produced after the Tribunal's substantive determination, was admissible on the appeal. Simon Brown LJ observed that authority on that question might conflict, but held that its resolution was unnecessary. The letter confirmed that conditions had not materially changed from the earlier UNHCR statement which the Tribunal had considered.

3. The Tribunal had properly treated the Secretary of State's suspension of removals following UNHCR advice as an administrative decision, not as determinative of refugee status or of a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. General evidence of serious violence against opponents of the regime required consideration, but did not mean that every Zimbabwean opponent qualified for protection.

4. Each claim required an evaluation of the claimant's own risk. The Adjudicator and Tribunal were entitled to find that the appellant was a low-profile member of a minor party; that prior violence had not been for a Convention reason; and that she had left Zimbabwe openly on her own passport. Those findings supported the conclusion that she had not established a well-founded fear of persecution or a real risk of Article 3 ill-treatment. The order was that the appeal be dismissed with costs, subject to a public funding order for the appellant's costs.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Dismissed the appellant's appeal from the Immigration Appeal Tribunal: [2003] EWCA Civ 1029.
• Immigration Appeal Tribunal: Dismissed the appellant's appeal by a determination promulgated on 26 July 2002.
• Adjudicator: Dismissed the appellant's asylum and human-rights appeals on 8 August 2001.