KK (Risk – Return - Suicide – Roma)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Andrew Jordan,Vice President |
| Judgment Date | 13 August 2004 |
| Neutral Citation | [2004] UKIAT 228 |
| Court | Immigration Appeals Tribunal |
| Date | 13 August 2004 |
[2004] UKIAT 228
IMMIGRATION APPEAL TRIBUNAL
Mr Andrew Jordan(Vice President)
Mrs E. Morton
For the appellant: Ms J. Wood, counsel
For the respondent: Mr G. Elks, Home Office Presenting Officer
KK (Risk — Return — Suicide — Roma) Serbia and Montenegro
The appellant is Roma and a citizen of Serbia and Montenegro who appeals against the determination of an adjudicator, Mr Michael D. Oakley, promulgated on 5 February 2003, dismissing his appeal against the decision of the Secretary of State to refuse both his asylum and his human rights claims.
The appellant was born on 29 March 1980 and is 24 years old. He claimed he entered the United Kingdom on 16 January 2002 and claimed asylum on 18 January 2002. The Secretary of State refused his claim and made a decision on 23 July 2002 to issue directions for the appellant's removal to Serbia. This gave rise to a right of appeal under section 69(5) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The appellant duly appealed.
The appellant comes from Bujanovc, in southern Serbia. He is an Albanian speaker. Bujanovac is one of the 3 municipalities that make up the Presevo Valley close to the border with Kosovo. These comprise the municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedje. It is estimated that there are up to 100,000 ethnic Albanians living in the area, where they form the majority of the population. There is also a Roma community living there. The appellant claimed that, throughout his life, his parents have suffered harassment, discrimination and persecution as a result of their Roma origin. In 1999, the adjudicator accepted that Serbian soldiers forced him and seven other Roma to bury the bodies of Albanians killed in the conflict. In 2001, he claims that he was accused by Albanians of supporting the Serbian authorities, as a result of which they set fire to his tent and destroyed his home and possessions. The appellant and his mother moved to another part of the village but, on 7 January 2002, he was threatened by local Albanians that he would be killed if he did not move away. Accordingly, he made arrangements to travel to the United Kingdom.
The adjudicator rejected the appellant's account of events in 2001, finding it implausible that the appellant had not sought redress with the local police. The adjudicator also found that it was possible for the appellant to move to a larger Roma community where he might benefit from safety in numbers. For these reasons, the adjudicator rejected both limbs of the appellant's appeal.
The appellant appealed. In the Notice of Appeal dated 16 November 2003, Ms Wood challenged the adjudicator's findings as to sufficiency of protection in Serbia, internal relocation and adverse credibility. No detailed challenge was made to the adjudicator's decision to dismiss the human rights appeal.
When the appeal came for hearing before the Tribunal on 17 March 2004, an application was made to enlarge the grounds of appeal on the basis that the appellant's mental health was such that there was a risk of suicide were he to return to Serbia. This application had, to some extent, been presaged at the hearing before the adjudicator. In paragraph 3 of the determination, Ms Wood had applied for an adjournment to permit the appellant an opportunity to obtain a medical report dealing with psychiatric difficulties that the appellant had experienced since arrival in the United Kingdom. It was indicated that the appellant had been receiving treatment since June or July 2002. Although this had not been advanced in the grounds of appeal, by the time the matter came before the Tribunal there was a volume of medical evidence that the Tribunal was required to consider. In addition, it was clear that the grounds of appeal required amendment to cover the issue. In due course, by amendment and re-amendment, the grounds of appeal were enlarged to cover both Articles 3 and 8 of the ECHR.
The Country Report of April 2004, prepared by CIPU deals with Roma in these terms:
Roma
S.6.75. The Republic constitution prohibits discrimination on ethnic or racial grounds. However, discrimination against Roma is widespread in all fields including housing, education, social and health care and employment. Intimidation and harassment is common and violent attacks by skinheads and police has not always adequately dealt with similar groups. There have also been cases of police brutality towards Roma during 2002. [2b] [3f] [9d] [9e] [63a](Section 1) [63b] [75a]
S.6.76. The Humanitarian Law centre, a Serbian NGO and advocacy group, investigated 241 cases of attacks on Roma in the period 2000 - 2002, by individuals and groups, and by the police. [63a](Introduction) ‘The most serious and typical incidents’ are outlined in the HLC report Roma in Serbia, published December 2003. [63a] There were examples of violent attacks on Roma during 2003.
S.6.77. Amnesty International has reported (in its September 2002 report) that frequent attacks with little apparent protection provided by the authorities have led to many Roma feeling too scared to go out in the evening. [3f](p.17) The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) reported that judicial proceedings are unduly prolonged when Roma appear as plaintiffs and the police response when Roma are assaulted by private citizens is often inadequate. [63b] However, as reported in the Amnesty International report of September 2002, in May 2001, two skinheads were convicted for an attack on a Roma couple that was accepted by the court as being motivated by ethnic hatred. [3f](p.17)
S.6.78. Incidents of police brutality against Roma continued in 2002 and 2003. HLC investigated several cases of police abuse, including beatings both at police stations and in the street. [63a] Complaints reported by the Humanitarian Law Center include as follows: ‘the investigated cases show that during routine procedures such as identity checks police officers regularly maltreated and physically abused Roma. Cases of physical abuse, even of children, were registered in connection with other police work such as execution of court orders.’ [63a](sect.1.1) Complaints alleging use of excessive force by police officers have not been properly investigated, according to the HLC in its shadow report of January 2003. [63b](p.18) The report continues, though courts have started sentencing officers for subjecting Roma to acts of torture, sentences are usually light. [63b](p.18)
S.6.79. Societal discrimination against Roma is widespread, ranging from non-admittance to restaurants, nightclubs, and sports centres. [63a](Introduction) Only rarely have Roma been successful in gaining legal remedy for having been denied access to public places, according to the HLC in January 2003. [63b](p.18) In July 2002, the municipal court in Sabac ruled in favour of Roma who were barred from using a public swimming pool: this was the first time that existing law had been used to prove discrimination against Roma. [3f](p.18) In January 2002 HLC filed a lawsuit against the Trezor disco in Belgrade for denying admission to Roma. [63b](p.17) No reports could be found to date (April 2004) as to whether the Trezor case has been resolved.
S.6.80. The US State Department report for 2003 and Amnesty International (AI) (in Concerns in Europe: January – June 2002) state that estimates vary but there are probably about 45,000 Roma Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in SaM, mostly from Kosovo. [3d](p.78) [2c](p.12) AI continues that local municipalities are often reluctant to accept them and IDPs have been deprived of humanitarian assistance because “as a nomadic people” they allegedly do not require it. [3d](p.78) In Belgrade and other towns in Serbia and Montenegro, many Roma IDPs live in squalid illegal settlements, without access to electricity, running water or sanitation, according to the US State Department report for 2003. [2c](p.12) There is a higher incidence of ill-health and infant mortality than among the general population, according to the Humanitarian Legal Center Shadow report of January 2003. [63b](p.19)
S.6.81. Local authorities are inadequate in their rehousing of Roma, according to the US State Department report for 2003, and have evicted Roma from tenancies arbitrarily, leading to great individual difficulty, such as, in July 2003, the Roma family of eight who were left homeless. [2c](p.17)
S.6.82. The problems for Roma IDPs are exacerbated by difficulties regarding registration and acquiring identity cards. Most who fled from Kosovo do not have adequate documentation or evidence of citizenship and are regularly denied access to health, social welfare and education for their children. [2b][3d][3f] For the most part Roma have no prospect of finding employment, according to the UN Humanitarian Risk analysis report 18, of July 2002. [61a](p.23)
S.6.83. Information from the Humanitarian Law Center's shadow report of 2002 and the US State Department report for 2002 concludes that Roma children have poor access to education, owing partly to language difficulties and to entrance tests that have not been adapted to their circumstances:–
‘Many Roma children never attend primary school, either for family reasons, because they were judged to be unqualified, or because of societal prejudice. Due to this lack of primary schooling, many Roma children did not learn to speak Serbian, and there was no instruction available in the Romani language. Some Roma children were mistakenly placed in schools for children with emotional disabilities because Romani language and cultural norms made it difficult for them to succeed on standardized tests in Serbian.’ [2b](p.15)
In Vojvodina, over 70% of Roma children are either semi-literate or illiterate. [63b](p.28) Some schools have refused to accept...
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