R v Immigration Appeal Tribunal, ex parte B
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 28 October 1988 |
| Date | 28 October 1988 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
Queen's Bench Division
Simon Brown J
C Ume for the applicant
D Pannick for the respondent
Cases referred to in the judgment:
R v Immigration Appeal Tribunal ex parte KotechaWLR (CA) [1982] Imm AR 88: [1983] 1 WLR 487.
R v Immigration Appeal Tribunal ex parte el HassaninUNK (CA) [1986] Imm AR 502: [1987] 1 All ER 74.
A v Switzerland (EHCR: Application 11933/86).
Viraj Mendis v Immigration Appeal Tribunal and Secretary of State for the Home Department (CA) [1989] Imm AR 6.
Political asylum voluntary political activities after arrival in United Kingdom, both before and after refusal of asylum by Secretary of State whether appellate authorities should take those activities into account in assessing risk of persecution. HC 169 para. 134.
The applicant for judicial review was an Iranian national who had been given leave to enter the United Kingdom with his family as a visitor. He subsequently applied for political asylum. In Iran his political activities had been minimal, although he claimed he had been a member of an anti-Khomeini group. In the United Kingdom, however, he became the treasurer of an Iranian Monarchist society, distributing pamphlets, attended anti-Khomeini demonstrations and was photographed at them. The Secretary of State refused his application, characterising his activities in the United Kingdom as self-serving; Both the Chief Adjudicator and the Tribunal dismissed appeals, essentially on the same grounds, and endorsed the view of the European Court of Human Rights which, in the case of A v Switzerland had observed nor can[the applicant]invoke his political activities in Switzerland in order to avoid being expelled, as any asylum seeker must restrict his political activities in his own interest, otherwise he must bear the consequence.
Before the court it was argued on behalf of the applicant that only activities that were undertaken in bad faith should be discounted: on the facts the applicant's activities should not be so characterised. The appellate authorities in the circumstances should have had regard to activities after the Secretary of State's decision as well as to those that ante-dated it. For the Tribunal it was contended that all unreasonable political activities in the United Kingdom should be disregarded.
Held:
1. Following Kotecha and el Hassanin, the appellate authorities had properly restricted themselves to facts in existence at the date of the Secretary of State's decision.
2. The restriction set out in A v Switzerland was too harsh: not all voluntary political activities in a host country automatically fell to be disregarded.
3. Nevertheless, it was not only those undertaken in bad faith that should be discounted; no activity in the host country which in all the circumstances of an individual case was unreasonable could be relied on by an applicant for political asylum.
4. Asylum seekers should henceforth be careful to ensure that after arrival here they do not needlessly enlarge, let alone create, the risk of persecution to which they would be exposed if and when they return home. If they do, particularly (although not exclusively) if they appear to have acted unscrupulously in the matter their asylum claims are likely to fail.
Simon Brown J: This is an asylum case brought against the Immigration Appeal Tribunal. What is singular and important about it is that the Tribunal have refused to regard the applicant as qualifying for political asylum even whilst expressly recognising that he could well suffer persecution upon return home. That on the face of it is a surprising and disturbing conclusion, not readily to be arrived at. Rather than that the applicant remain any longer in suspense, I must nevertheless say at the outset of this judgment that I regard the decision to be valid in law and so immune from interference by this court. I turn at once to the facts.
The applicant is an Iranian citizen, thirty-eight years old, married with two children. On 27 August 1985, shortly after being ordered to the front line in Iran's war against Iraq, he brought his family to England for a visit. Earlier that month he had obtained in Tehran entry clearance for the purpose. He was granted one-month's leave to remain. That leave was extended to 27 March 1986 so that his wife could receive medical treatment. On 29 October 1985, within the currency of that extended leave, the applicant applied to the Home Office for political asylum. He asserted that he was a refugee from Iran and that he and his family were unable to return there. That application fell to be considered under the provisions of paragraph 134 of HC 169:
Asylum
A person may apply for asylum in the United Kingdom on the ground that, if he were required to leave, he would have to go to a country to which he is unwilling to go owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion...
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