Deda, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

For certification under National Immigration Asylum Act 2002, a claim is clearly unfounded only where it is bound to fail. An arguable asylum or human-rights claim cannot properly be certified.

Internal relocation requires comparison between conditions in the claimant’s habitual residence and those in the proposed safe haven, having regard to the claimant’s characteristics. Conditions in the country where asylum is sought are irrelevant to that assessment. Article 8 does not generally apply where the feared violation is exclusively connected with events in the receiving state.

The claimant, an ethnic Albanian and Roman Catholic from Macedonia, challenged the Secretary of State’s certification of his asylum and human-rights claims as clearly unfounded under section 94 of the National Immigration Asylum Act 2002.

He feared death threats from his partner’s family because he was Catholic and she was Muslim. He also relied on discrimination and inadequate state protection. The central questions were whether the claims were arguable, whether he could safely and reasonably relocate elsewhere in Macedonia, and whether Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention were engaged.

1. Application dismissed. The Secretary of State was entitled to certify the asylum and human-rights claims as clearly unfounded under section 94 of the National Immigration Asylum Act 2002.
2. The governing test, explained in R (L) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] EWCA Civ 25, is whether the claim is arguable. If it is arguable, it cannot be described as bound to fail and should not be certified.
3. Internal relocation involves comparing conditions in the claimant’s habitual residence with those in the proposed safe haven, taking account of the claimant’s characteristics. The comparison is not with conditions in the country where asylum is sought. Applying AE and FE v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] EWCA Civ 1032 and, particularly, Januzi v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] EWCA Civ 1187, the claimant could reasonably live elsewhere in Macedonia beyond the reach of the family threatening him.
4. The threats were confined to the partner’s family. The claimant had not suggested that they could find him elsewhere in Macedonia. The discrimination and isolation described in the village, although accepted, fell well short of the severity required for persecution or a breach of Article 3.
5. Article 8 was not arguably engaged. Applying the territoriality principle discussed in Secretary of State for the Home Department v Razgar [2003] EWCA Civ 840, the feared treatment was exclusively connected with Macedonia, and none of the additional factors identified in that authority was present.
6. The evidence did not arguably establish insufficient protection under the principles in Horvath v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2001] 1 AC 489. In any event, once relocation removed the well-founded fear, the protection issue did not arise.
7. The claimant was ordered to pay the defendant’s costs, with determination of liability postponed pending further application. A certificate for CLS funding was granted.

Not stated in the judgment.