Mehmeti, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

For removal to engage article 8 on health grounds, the evidence must show consequences of exceptional gravity. A general risk of deterioration, suicidal ideation, or poorer prospects of recovery is insufficient without a sufficiently specific and serious evidential basis. The court must assess all material likely to be before the adjudicator, including whether the claimant fears ill-treatment in the receiving state, whether appropriate treatment will be available there, and whether the medical opinion is actually linked to the proposed destination. Where those matters are absent, the claim may be certified as clearly unfounded. Even if article 8 is potentially engaged, immigration control will ordinarily justify removal.

The claimant, a Kosovo national, challenged the Secretary of State’s decision to certify as clearly unfounded her human-rights claim opposing removal to Greece under the Dublin Convention. The claim relied principally on article 8 and medical evidence that removal might cause serious deterioration, suicidal behaviour, or psychosis. Permission was limited to the certification issue. The central questions were whether the proposed removal had consequences sufficiently grave to engage article 8 and, if so, whether the interference was proportionate under article 8(2).

1. Application dismissed. The claimant’s lengthy residence did not materially assist her, since she had long known that she had no right to remain and would be returned to Greece when legally possible.
2. The threshold for engaging article 8 through the foreseeable health consequences of removal is high. The court considered the guidance in Razgar v Secretary of State [2004] 2 AC 368, including the need to assess how the claim would fare before an adjudicator.
3. The court accepted that the medical evidence had to be taken as stated for certification purposes. However, the evidence had to be assessed as a whole. There was no evidence that the claimant feared ill-treatment in Greece, would lack appropriate treatment there, or that the psychiatrist’s opinion was specifically directed to removal to Greece rather than Kosovo. The court exercised caution concerning opinions based solely on the claimant’s own statements, following HY v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] UK IAT 00048.
4. The court treated Djali [2003] EWCA Civ 1371 as illustrating the high threshold, while noting its limited assistance on the facts. It also relied on N v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] EWCA Civ 1369. On the evidence, an adjudicator would clearly reject engagement of article 8.
5. Although unnecessary to decide proportionality, the court held in the alternative that removal was proportionate and justified under article 8(2). Permission to appeal was refused. A wasted-costs order of £800 was made against the claimant’s solicitors.

First-instance judicial review proceedings. The judgment records no prior judicial decision in the same claim.