MA (Sudan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

In assessing whether family members face persecution on return, a tribunal may consider evidence that other relatives have not suffered ill-treatment because of their relationship to the relevant person. Earlier visits without difficulty may also be relevant, although they are not conclusive where circumstances have changed. The tribunal must assess risk by reference to the facts and may distinguish a family relationship from categories of returnees identified as generally at risk, such as known political activists or anti-government student activists.

Two Sudanese children, present in the United Kingdom as students, appealed against the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal’s reconsideration determination dated 6 November 2007. Their refugee claims were based on the alleged risk arising from their relationship with their father, a high-profile SLA negotiating-team member categorised by Sudan as a terrorist, and their uncle, who had been arrested and seriously ill-treated.

The issue was whether the Tribunal had lawfully assessed the risk that the relationship would be discovered on return through questioning at Khartoum Airport.

1. Application refused. The Tribunal was entitled to conclude that the applicants’ relationship with their father and uncle did not expose them to a real risk of persecution on return.
2. The applicants’ previous visits to Sudan without difficulty were a relevant factor, although those visits did not establish that they would be safe on return because the father’s categorisation and the uncle’s detention occurred later.
3. The Tribunal was entitled to rely on the fact that the uncle’s children in Khartoum had not suffered ill-treatment or difficulties following his treatment. It was also entitled to consider that other, more distant relatives had not suffered ill-treatment because of their relationship with the father. Those matters were relevant to the assessment of risk by reason of family relationship.
4. The relationship did not itself place the applicants within a category identified in HGMO as exposing returnees to risk, such as known political activists or anti-government student activists.
5. Lord Justice Sedley and Lord Justice Longmore agreed with Lord Justice Moses. The formal order was: application refused.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): refused the application against the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal’s reconsideration determination dated 6 November 2007.
• Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: reconsideration determination dated 6 November 2007 rejected the applicants’ claims to refugee status.