GY (Eritrea-Failed asylum seeker)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | MR JUSTICE OUSELEY,PRESIDENT |
| Judgment Date | 30 December 2004 |
| Neutral Citation | [2004] UKIAT 327 |
| Court | Immigration Appeals Tribunal |
| Date | 30 December 2004 |
[2004] UKIAT 327
IMMIGRATION APPEAL TRIBUNAL
The Honourable Mr Justice Ouseley (President)
Mr P R Lane (Vice President)
Mr I Dove QC
For the Appellant: Mr P Gunasekara, instructed by Athuraliyage Solicitors
For the Respondent: Miss L Dawes, Home Office Presenting Officer
GY (Eritrea-Failed asylum seeker) Eritrea
This is an appeal against the determination of an Adjudicator, Mr R N Barton, promulgated on 16 th June 2004. It concerns an Eritrean in his middle to late forties from Asmara in Eritrea originally, but who has lived at some time also in Addis Ababa. He made an initial asylum claim shortly after his arrival in the United Kingdom in 1999 but his application was refused and in November 2001 the Adjudicator dismissed his appeal. He then lodged a second asylum claim reversing his first and second names and giving a different date of birth. He also changed many aspects of what he said had happened to him. He was granted four years Exceptional Leave to Remain. This was revoked by letter dated 1 st October 2003 after a fingerprint check revealed him to be a multiple applicant who had given false details. Hence the appeal was against the decision that he be removed after the revocation of exceptional leave to remain and the refusal of asylum.
The Adjudicator set out the first and second asylum claims. The Adjudicator was told that the first account was the true account and the Appellant wished to revert to that. The Adjudicator said, unsurprisingly, that he found the Appellant's account to be completely unreliable. He pointed to the deceitful second application and to the significant changes in his account of what he said. The basis of his first account was that before he came to the United Kingdom in September 1999 he had been living in Addis Ababa with his wife and five children as a market trader. He had now been told that his wife and children were in Asmara. He maintained that he was involved as a branch treasurer in Addis Ababa with the ELF, that he was opposed to the current regime in Eritrea, was well known to them and would be killed by them should he return. His first asylum claim contended that he was born in January 1957 and had left Asmara in 1989.
The Adjudicator said:
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“32. Considering the accounts of past events in the context of the country situation, and bearing in mind all of the foregoing, I cannot find the crux of Appellant's story (his claimed political involvement) to have been established to any acceptable standard. He has shown quite clearly that he is a person with a great facility to invent detailed stories and then to maintain them through thick and thin. That the second application was fraudulent and based on an entirely untruthful account of events, was only uncovered as a result of the fingerprint evidence. Faced with that irrefutable evidence, the Appellant had little choice but to admit the story had been fabricated.
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33. His credibility has been completely undermined. There is no independent evidence before me to corroborate the truthfulness of the Appellant's earlier account. I am prepared to accept that the Appellant lived and worked as a businessman in Addis Ababa for several years just prior to coming to the UK. I am prepared to accept (on the basis of objective material concerning the Ethiopian authorities' policy of repatriation of ethnic Eritreans in 1999) that the Appellant's family was deported and that he fled here fearing that he too may be deported. I do not find it to have been established that the Appellant held any office for ELF or was anything more than an ordinary supporter who would be of no interest currently to the authorities in Eritrea.
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34. I reach the above conclusion after anxious scrutiny of the objective material, most importantly the up-to-date UNHCR Position on Return of Rejected Asylum Seekers to Eritrea, of January 2004 and the IAT decisions in Eritrea CG [2002] UKIAT 05039 and in MA (Female draft evader) Eritrea CG [2004] UKIAT 00098. There is an uncertain position that faces many returnees to Eritrea currently, but the Appellant is not a draft-evader (indeed he is well above the age for military service) and has not established that he has any political connection of any significance.”
The Adjudicator concluded that there had been no past political involvement of any significance. The fact that his mother was Ethiopian by birth, or that he failed to contribute to Eritrean funds when he was living in Ethiopia was not likely to cause him to be of adverse interest and for the reasons which he had given, dismissed both the asylum and human rights appeals.
The grounds of appeal take issue only with the position of risk which a failed asylum seeker would have on return to Eritrea. They contended that the Appellant was a plain and simple failed asylum seeker who would be in a vulnerable position on return. The UNHCR had said in its January 2004 position paper that rejected asylum seekers were entitled to some form of complementary protection, which position had been ignored by the Adjudicator. This was said to be the error of law.
Permission to appeal was granted because the Tribunal decision referred to in paragraph 34 of the Adjudicator's determination was thought arguably to go further than dealing with the position of those who would be perceived as female draft evaders on return.
Before us, Mr Gunasekara for the Appellant has added little to the grounds of appeal. He has referred us to some...
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