OA (Somalia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

On a second appeal, permission requires a real prospect of success and an important point of principle or practice, or another compelling reason. An appellate court should interfere with a competent tribunal’s case-management decision only where it is plainly wrong and outside the generous ambit of reasonable disagreement. Disagreement with an expert tribunal’s assessment of extensive evidence is insufficient where its reasons explain the conclusions reached. Article 3 requires a causal link between removal and alleged mistreatment; temporal proximity is not a freestanding requirement. Violence is not essential to an Article 3 breach arising from forced eviction, but the conditions must reach the required severity and state responsibility for non-state conduct must be established. Permission to appeal was refused.

The appellant, a Somali national with refugee status and indefinite leave to remain, faced deportation following repeated criminal convictions. The First-tier Tribunal allowed his appeal on Refugee Convention and Article 3 grounds. The Upper Tribunal subsequently set aside that decision and, after remittal and country-guidance proceedings, dismissed the appeal on 24 January 2022.

The appellant sought permission for a second appeal. His grounds challenged the treatment of factual findings, country guidance on employment and mental-health provision, Article 3 causation, expert evidence, drug addiction, and forced eviction. The central question was whether any ground had a real prospect of success, raised an important point of principle or practice, or disclosed another compelling reason.

1. Permission and outcome. This was a second appeal. Permission required a real prospect of success together with an important point of principle or practice, or some other compelling reason. None of the grounds satisfied that threshold. The application for permission to appeal was refused.
2. Case management and preserved findings. The governing standard was whether the Upper Tribunal’s case-management decision was plainly wrong, outside the generous ambit within which reasonable decision-makers may disagree. HF (Algeria) v SSHD [2007] EWCA Civ 445 was fact-specific and did not assist. The decision to reassess the First-tier Tribunal’s findings was open to the Upper Tribunal because later evidence required assessment, the original findings were equivocal, and the error-of-law decision criticised the reasoning about the appellant’s circumstances on return.
3. Evidence and country guidance. The Upper Tribunal was entitled to evaluate the evidence on mental-health treatment, employment, clan and family connections, and the availability of a guarantor. Its reasons were sufficient to explain the conclusions reached. A disagreement with the weight given to evidence, or the omission of a particular report from the reasoning, did not establish an error of law. The employment evidence supported the conclusion that there had been no durable worsening since the country guidance in MOJ in 2015.
4. Article 3. The relevant question was whether there was a causal link between the removal decision and the alleged mistreatment. Temporal considerations arose only within that causation inquiry and did not create a novel proximity requirement. In relation to forced eviction, violence was not required, but the factual conditions had to reach the necessary severity. The Upper Tribunal had applied the broadened approach in Paposhvili v Belgium [2017] Imm LR 867 and AM (Zimbawbe) v SSHD [2020] UKSC 17. It was also entitled to find no evidence that the state acquiesced in evictions by non-state actors, having regard to national policies and guidelines.
5. Individual evidence. The Upper Tribunal properly considered the psychiatric evidence against its credibility findings, the appellant’s presentation, and the errors affecting evidence about his mother. It was entitled to assess drug use by reference to his particular history rather than generic material. No ground had a real prospect of success and no other compelling reason justified permission.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): On 15 December 2022, refused permission for a second appeal.
• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): In October 2019, by consent, set aside the Upper Tribunal’s decision of 29 January 2019 and remitted the matter for a fresh decision.
• Upper Tribunal: On 7 April 2020, set aside the First-tier Tribunal’s decision for errors of law and directed reassessment of the appellant’s circumstances and country-guidance issues.
• Upper Tribunal: On 24 January 2022, remade the decision and dismissed the appellant’s appeal on all grounds.
• First-tier Tribunal: On 9 May 2018, allowed the appeal on Refugee Convention and Article 3 grounds.