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

A detained asylum process may lawfully proceed at speed, but requests for further evidence must be considered flexibly. An extension is required only where the evidence might affect a relevant finding. A threat, without more, does not necessarily establish an active blood feud or create an entitlement to asylum. In detention cases, the Hardial Singh principles require a realistic prospect of removal within a reasonable period, but no precise removal date need be identifiable. Detention reviews containing errors do not invalidate detention where the errors were not relied upon, were not causative, and the same decision would plainly have been made on the correct facts.

The claimant, an Albanian national, sought judicial review of the refusal and certification of his asylum claim and of his detention. He alleged that his former partner’s family had threatened him with a blood feud following an altercation in the United Kingdom. He also relied on evidence expected from criminal and perjury proceedings and argued that the detained asylum casework process had determined his claim prematurely.

The central issues were whether the Secretary of State acted unlawfully by refusing further time, whether the conclusion that no active blood feud existed was irrational, and whether continued detention breached the principles governing executive detention pending removal.

1. The claim was dismissed. The Secretary of State was entitled to use the detained asylum casework process. Its accelerated nature must be balanced with flexibility concerning further evidence, but an extension need not be granted whenever requested.
2. The relevant question was whether the requested evidence might affect a material finding. The decision letter accepted the claimant’s account of the threats. The proposed evidence would mainly add detail to accepted facts and would not address the absence of a formal declaration, subsequent threats, killings, or problems affecting the claimant’s family in Albania. The refusal to extend time was therefore not irrational and did not breach the applicable guidance.
3. The conclusion that there was no active blood feud was lawful. The guidance and EH (blood feuds) Albania CG [2012] UKUT 00348 (IAC) required satisfactory individual evidence of an active feud and real risk of harm. The claimant’s evidence consisted principally of a threat to him and an earlier warning to his mother. The absence of killings did not constitute an inflexible legal requirement, but the evidence did not meet the necessary threshold. An allegation of a blood feud does not automatically establish entitlement to asylum.
4. The alternative conclusions on internal relocation and sufficiency of protection would also have been highly likely to produce the same result.
5. Applying the principles in R v Governor of Durham prison ex parte Hardial Singh [1984] 1 All ER 983, as endorsed in R (Lumba) v SSHD [2012] 1 AC 245, detention remained lawful. There was a realistic prospect of expeditious removal through the detained asylum process. The Secretary of State did not need to identify a precise removal date. A possible future police application was not an apparent bar to removal.
6. The claimant presented an absconding risk because he had entered unlawfully, lacked ties to the United Kingdom and had made no earlier attempt to regularise his position. That risk was not displaced by unsupported assertions of police supervision or by later compliance with reporting conditions. Errors in detention reviews were immaterial because they were not relied upon, did not cause the decisions, and the same decisions would plainly have been made on the correct facts.

First-instance judicial review. No prior appellate decision is stated in the judgment.