MM, (Lebanon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

In an internal-relocation asylum case, a tribunal must assess safety by reference to all material considerations. It cannot infer that relocation outside an area directly controlled by a non-State persecutor is safe merely because the persecutor’s direct control is geographically limited. Relevant matters include the persecutor’s reach, freedom of movement, the country’s size and geography, the persecutor’s ability and determination to find the claimant, and the objective evidence. Failure to grapple with a central issue is an error of law permitting appellate intervention. A separate question of reasonableness or undue harshness need not be decided where the safety assessment is legally defective.

The appellant, a Lebanese national, claimed asylum after being detained by Hezbollah during the 2006 conflict because he was suspected of passing information to an alleged Israeli spy. The Immigration Judge accepted his account and found a risk of persecution in areas controlled by Hezbollah, but concluded that he could safely and reasonably relocate elsewhere in Lebanon.

On statutory reconsideration, the Senior Immigration Judge upheld that conclusion, although the objective material did not show a clear demarcation between Hezbollah-controlled and other areas. The appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal, arguing that the tribunal had unlawfully oversimplified the internal-relocation issue. The central question was whether the finding of safety had been reached by considering all material circumstances.

The Court of Appeal unanimously allowed the appeal. Lord Justice Maurice Kay gave the leading judgment, with which Lord Justice Wall and Lord Justice Laws agreed.

1. Safety of internal relocation. The tribunal’s finding that the appellant could safely relocate to an unspecified area outside direct Hezbollah control was not shown to have been based on all material considerations. The tribunal had treated the geographical limits of Hezbollah’s direct control as sufficient to infer that the organisation could not reach the appellant elsewhere.
2. Material matters omitted. The tribunal failed adequately to consider Lebanon’s small size, the absence of any clear line of demarcation between areas under Hezbollah control and other areas, the extent to which Hezbollah members or activists could move freely, and the organisation’s ability to pursue the appellant beyond its strongholds. Those omissions were material, particularly because the evidence showed that Hezbollah had repeatedly sought the appellant at his mother’s home and would seek to find him if it knew his whereabouts.
3. Appellate intervention. Although appellate courts should be slow to interfere with the factual assessment of a specialist tribunal, failure to grapple with the central issue of whether relocation was safe constituted an error of law. The Court was therefore entitled to intervene.
4. Disposition. It was unnecessary to determine the separate issue of whether relocation would be reasonable or unduly harsh. The case was remitted to the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal for second-stage reconsideration. The appellant retained the benefit of his accepted evidence, but could supplement it regarding subsequent events, and the objective material required updating.

Order: appeal allowed.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — In [2009] EWCA Civ 382, the appeal was allowed and the case remitted to the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal for second-stage reconsideration.
2. Asylum and Immigration Tribunal — The Immigration Judge dismissed the asylum appeal. On first-stage reconsideration, the Senior Immigration Judge found no error of law in that decision. The appeal to the Court of Appeal followed.