V v Secretary of State for the Home Department

An appeal cannot succeed merely by concentrating on adverse conditions in one locality where existing country guidance remains accepted. The claimant must show either a personal characteristic beyond ethnicity creating risk throughout the country, or specific reasons making relocation elsewhere unduly harsh. Genuine fear, employment or accommodation difficulties, and lack of social networks do not necessarily satisfy that demanding test. An incorrect proportionality formulation may be immaterial where the first-instance decision-maker also reached the substantive conclusion independently and the appellate tribunal considered the case in the round. Permission to appeal requires a real prospect of success on a point of law or another compelling reason.

Miss V, an ethnic Serb from Croatia, claimed asylum after arriving in the United Kingdom in 1999. Her account of harassment, including a death threat, was accepted as truthful. The adjudicator dismissed her appeal, relying on country guidance concerning ethnic Serbs and finding no persecution or Article 3 risk in her home area or elsewhere in Croatia. The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal upheld that conclusion and found no material error concerning the evidence, procedural fairness, or delay.

Miss V sought permission to appeal, arguing that evidence concerning Benkovac and the Zadar area had not been properly considered, that the proceedings before the adjudicator were unfair, and that delay had prejudiced her claim. The central issues were whether the country guidance remained applicable, whether internal relocation would be unduly harsh, and whether any legal or procedural error was material.

1. Permission refused. The proposed appeal had no real prospect of success and there was no other compelling reason to grant permission.
2. The country guidance in SK (Return - Ethnic Serb) Croatia CG [2002] UKIAT 05613 remained valid. It had consistently been accepted in subsequent Tribunal and Court of Appeal decisions, including Strbac v SSHD [2205] EWCA Civ 848. Evidence concentrated on Benkovac could not succeed unless the claimant showed either a personal characteristic beyond being an ethnic Serb, creating a risk throughout Croatia, or specific reasons making relocation elsewhere in Croatia unduly harsh.
3. The claimant’s genuine subjective fear, anticipated difficulty obtaining employment or accommodation, and lack of a family or social network elsewhere did not meet that demanding test. She therefore had no arguable case that relocation within Croatia would expose her to persecution or treatment contrary to Article 3.
4. The Article 8 claim was particularly weak. The relevant family relationships were with adult siblings who had no present right to remain in the United Kingdom, while the claimant had family, including her father, in Croatia.
5. The adjudicator had used an incorrect proportionality formulation by asking whether no reasonable Secretary of State could have reached the decision. Huang & Ors v SSHD [2005] EWCA Civ 105 established the correct approach. Nevertheless, the adjudicator also stated that, had the decision been her own, she would have reached the same conclusion. The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal considered the case in the round. Any error was therefore self-corrected and immaterial.
6. The delay argument was not self-evidently decisive. Authority including Strbac v SSHD [2205] EWCA Civ 848 recorded that, by April 2000, official guidance considered it most unlikely that ethnic Serbs could substantiate an asylum claim.

Order: Permission to appeal refused.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): permission to appeal from the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal was refused.
• Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: on 9 December 2005, dismissed Miss V’s appeal against the adjudicator’s determination and found no material error concerning the evidence or delay.
• Adjudicator: dismissed the asylum and human-rights appeal, finding no persecution, Article 3 breach, disproportionate interference under Article 8, or persuasive delay-based ground.