MF v Secretary of State for the Home Department
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE MOORE-BICK
- LORD JUSTICE BRIGGS
Areas of Law
- Immigration Law
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The appellant from Albania, facing refusal of asylum in the UK due to a blood feud, appealed on grounds of unsafe relocation and inadequate family support in Tirana. The tribunal found relocation viable, discounted expert testimony on risks, and held the appellant's mother could reasonably support him. They also ruled paragraph 339L of Immigration Rules does not apply to second-hand risk evidence. The appeal was dismissed.
Judgment
Lord Justice Moore-Bick :
This is an appeal against the decision of the Upper Tribunal dismissing the appellant’s appeal against the respondent’s refusal to grant him asylum or humanitarian protection.
The appellant is a national of Albania. He was born on 9 th June 1996, so is now aged 18. He entered the United Kingdom in February 2012 and claimed asylum on 20 th February 2012. He was then aged 15½.
In due course the appellant’s account of the circumstances in which he had fled Albania was largely accepted as true by the First-tier Tribunal, though not by the respondent herself. He said that he had lived with his extended family in a village in the mountains about 1½ hours’ drive north of the capital, Tirana. In December 2010 a dispute over land had broken out between his family and another local family, M, in the course of which his cousin had struck a member of that family, S, with an iron bar and killed him, giving rise to a blood feud. The appellant was then aged 14½. He said that shortly afterwards he had been bullied by one of S’s younger brothers, who had warned him that he was a target for revenge. He said that the police were unwilling to provide protection in cases of this kind and as a result he had stopped going to school and had remained at home indoors, where, according to local custom, he was safe from attack. When it became clear that all attempts at reconciliation had failed, his family had sent him abroad. He had eventually reached this country, having travelled across Europe by lorry. Soon after he arrived he had been able to contact his mother, who told him that his father had also gone abroad and that his whereabouts were unknown. The appellant said that he had reason to fear that if he were to return to Albania he would be killed by the M family in revenge for the death of S.
The Secretary of State rejected the appellant’s claim for asylum or humanitarian protection because she was not satisfied that his family was involved in a blood feud, as he alleged, or that he could not obtain adequate protection in his own country. In any event, she considered that he could, if necessary, move to Tirana where he could live in safety. However, the appellant was an unaccompanied minor in respect of whom there were no adequate reception arrangements in his own country and so, in accordance with established policy, he was given leave to remain in this country until December 2013 when he would reach the age of 17½.
The appellant’s ap