AAR v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Existing country guidance remains authoritative unless very strong grounds supported by cogent evidence justify its revision. Continuing volatility and an uncertain political future do not, without sufficient current evidence, displace guidance on the risk to non-Arab Darfuris on return to Sudan or on internal relocation to Khartoum.

Where an appellant's accepted profile falls within the ratio of extant country guidance, that guidance should be followed and the protection appeal allowed.

Two Sudanese nationals of non-Arab Darfuri ethnicity appealed after the First-tier Tribunal had dismissed their asylum appeals. The Upper Tribunal had previously found errors of law in the First-tier Tribunal's treatment of the country guidance and reserved re-making the decisions.

The linked appeals became a country-guidance reconsideration. The central question was whether AA (non-Arab Darfuris - relocation) Sudan CG [2009] UKAIT 00056 and MM (Darfuris) Sudan CG [2015] UKUT 00010 (IAC) required revision in light of current evidence, including internal relocation to Khartoum.

Following extensive evidence and subsequent political upheaval in Sudan, the respondent accepted that the evidence did not justify departing from the existing guidance and that both appeals should be allowed.

1. The asylum appeals were allowed. The First-tier Tribunal decisions contained errors of law and were set aside. The Upper Tribunal re-made both decisions by allowing the appeals on asylum grounds.

2. The Tribunal held that Sudan's circumstances remained volatile following civil protests beginning in late 2018, and that its future was unpredictable. That instability did not itself provide sufficient evidence to revise the extant country guidance.

3. The Tribunal applied the requirement, drawn from SG (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 940, that departure from country guidance requires very strong grounds supported by cogent evidence. On the material available, that threshold was not met.

4. The guidance in AA (non-Arab Darfuris - relocation) Sudan CG [2009] UKAIT 00056 and MM (Darfuris) Sudan CG [2015] UKUT 00010 (IAC) therefore remained to be followed. Each appellant's accepted status as a Darfuri brought him within the ratio of those cases, notwithstanding that the particular accounts of past ill-treatment had not been accepted as establishing persecution.

• Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber): Earlier error-of-law decisions dated 16 May 2018 set aside the First-tier Tribunal decisions and reserved re-making. In the present linked country-guidance determination, the Tribunal re-made both decisions by allowing the asylum appeals.

• First-tier Tribunal: Dismissed AAR's appeal on 6 November 2017 and dismissed AA's appeal on 6 November 2017. The decisions were set aside for errors of law.