GG (Return - Eritrean)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | D B Casson |
| Judgment Date | 10 January 2003 |
| Neutral Citation | [2002] UKIAT 5996 |
| Court | Immigration Appeals Tribunal |
| Docket Number | APPEAL NO HX42447-2001 |
| Date | 10 January 2003 |
[2002] UKIAT 5996
IMMIGRATION APPEAL TRIBUNAL
Professor D B Casson (Chairman)
Mrs M Roe
APPEAL NO HX42447-2001
GG (Return — Eritrean) Ethiopia CG
This is an appeal by an ethnic Eritrean against the determination of an Adjudicator (Dr R Kekic) dismissing his appeal on asylum and human rights grounds against the decision by the respondent on 22 April 2001 to refuse to grant leave to enter the United Kingdom and to give directions for removal to Ethiopia. Before us the appellant was represented by Mr R Solomon instructed by Spence & Horne, solicitors. The respondent was represented by Mr A Mole, Home Office Presenting Officer.
The appellant claimed to have been born in Asmara and to have moved to Addis Ababa in 1975, where he lived until July 1998, when he left the country. He arrived in the United Kingdom on 20 August 1998 and claimed asylum on arrival. He had travelled via Italy on a Somali passport which he had tried to destroy. He was accompanied by his wife and son, who are his dependants for the purposes of the appeal; a daughter was born in the United Kingdom on 27 October 2000.
The asylum appeal was refused for reasons given in a letter dated 5 December 2001, which superseded a letter dated 2 April 2001.
The appellant gave evidence before the Adjudicator, who also considered background documentation including a report by Dr Pool dated 13 March 2002. It was common ground that the appellant was of Eritrean origin. The Adjudicator restricted her findings on the basis of removal to Ethiopia, in accordance with the respondent's intentions. The Adjudicator noted that the appellant's claim was based solely on the question of his ethnicity “and whether as an Eritrean he would be forcibly deported from Ethiopia or ill-treated in some other way.” Having considered the evidence, and Dr Pool's report, which questioned whether the appellant would be accepted back to Ethiopia at all, the Adjudicator expressed her findings at paragraph 53 of her determination as follows:
“I find nothing in the report which persuades me, to the lower standard, that the appellant would face a current risk of persecution in Ethiopia. Most of the report deals with the past deportations and refers to material pre-dating the peace agreement and I therefore find that it does not advance the appellant's claim.”
At paragraph 57, the Adjudicator noted that the evidence submitted by both sides showed a cessation of forced removals and some continuing repatriation with consent. More than 200,000 Eritreans remained in Ethiopia and there was no reason why the appellant could not safely return there. The evidence did not indicate a reasonable degree of likelihood that he would be subjected to persecution or any breaches of his human rights were he to return to Ethiopia.
The grounds of appeal are wide ranging, but Mr Solomon, who had not represented the appellant before the Adjudicator, made it clear that he was limiting his submissions to the question of the appellant's ethnicity. Mr Solomon put before us a letter from UNHCR dated 12 April 2002 and a further report by Dr Pool dated March 2002, both of which post-dated the Adjudicator's decision. In his submissions Mr Solomon accepted that there had been improvements in the situation, but he reminded us that the Adjudicator had accepted that the appellant was Eritrean; that he had been detained for one month in 1998 and that there had been a risk of repatriation which had ceased since December 2000. Mr Solomon submitted that...
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Upper Tribunal (Immigration and asylum chamber), 2011-06-30, [2011] UKUT 252 (IAC) (ST (Ethnic Eritrean - nationality - return))
...CG cases on Ethiopia are superseded or replaced, as the case may be, by the present determination: GG (Return – Eritrean) Ethiopia CG [2002] UKIAT 05996; NB (Mixed Ethnicity – Ethiopian – Eritrean) Ethiopia CG [2002] UKIAT 06526; AA (Children – Eritrean) Ethiopia CG UKIAT 06533; TG (Mixed E......
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ST (Ethnic Eritrean – nationality – return)
...CG cases on Ethiopia are superseded or replaced, as the case may be, by the present determination: GG (Return – Eritrean) Ethiopia CG [2002] UKIAT 05996; NB (Mixed Ethnicity – Ethiopian – Eritrean) Ethiopia CG [2002] UKIAT 06526; AA (Children – Eritrean) Ethiopia CG UKIAT 06533; TG (Mixed E......
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Upper Tribunal (Immigration and asylum chamber), 2003-01-10, [2002] UKIAT 5996 (GG (Return, Eritrean))
...10pt; so-language: ar-SA } KH Heard at: Field House APPEAL NO HX42447-2001 on 10 June 2002 GG (Return - Eritrean) Ethiopia CG [2002] UKIAT 05996 IMMIGRATION APPEAL TRIBUNAL Date Determination notified: 10 January 2003 .......................................... Before: Professor D B Casson (......