JM (zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Judge | Lord Justice Elias |
| Judgment Date | 07 May 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWCA Civ 612 |
| Docket Number | Case No: C5/2012/2904 |
| Date | 07 May 2013 |
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
(IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER)
[Appeal No: AA/00816/2009]
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Elias
Case No: C5/2012/2904
Mr Abid Mahmood (instructed by Fountain Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the Applicant
The Respondent did not appear and was not represented
(As approved)
This is a renewed application for permission to appeal. It relates to a woman from Zimbabwe. There is a long procedural history in the case. She was granted permission to stay on asylum grounds by Immigration Judge Coker. That was the subject of an appeal to the Upper Tribunal, which concluded that she should not be allowed to stay. That in turn, it was conceded, had been made with arguable errors of law, and therefore the matter was remitted by the Court of Appeal back to the Upper Tribunal, although the principal findings of Immigration Judge Coker were to stand, and the case was then heard in the Upper Tribunal by Upper Tribunal Judge Hanson on 3 July 2012.
The essential findings of Judge Coker were that the applicant was not a credible witness and had not been involved in politics on behalf of the opposition MDC while in Zimbabwe as she claimed. In various other respects, which it is not necessary to set out, her evidence was disbelieved. But she had become involved in some sur place activities, although Upper Tribunal Judge Hanson considered that this was not for a genuine purpose but merely to seek to reinforce the application for asylum.
The principles which apply in these circumstances have been considered by the Supreme Court in the case of RT (Zimbabwe) v SSHD [2012] 3 WLR 345. The critical finding of the Tribunal can be found in paragraph 59 of the decision of Lord Dyson. He said this:
"To summarise, in the light of RN, it is difficult to see how an asylum claim advanced on the basis of imputed political opinion could be rejected, unless the judge was able to find that the claimant would return to a milieu where political loyalty would be assumed and where, if he was interrogated at all, he would not face the difficulties faced by those who were not loyal to the regime in other parts of the country. If the claimant would return to any other parts of the country, the judge would be likely to conclude that there was a real and substantial risk that a politically neutral person who pretended that he was loyal to the regime would be disbelieved."
On the remitted case the critical paragraphs, it seems to me, of the judge's analysis are paragraphs 64 to 67. In particular, at paragraph 65 the judge concluded that the applicant would be returned to her family, who lived in a medium density area and in relation to whom there was no evidence of difficulties from the war veterans or Zanu-PF supporters. It was a staunch Zanu-PF milieu. He noted there was no evidence of family members being required to demonstrate loyalty to the regime or suffering adverse consequences as a result of...
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