R v Immigration Appeal Tribunal and Another, ex parte Sandralingam and Another ; R v Same, ex parte Rajendrakumar
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 11 October 1995 |
| Date | 11 October 1995 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Justice Nourse, Lord Justice Staughton and Lord Justice Simon Brown
Immigration - asylum appeals - risk of persecution considered
The question to be determined by the Home Secretary and the relevant appellate authorities as to whether an asylum-seeker was at risk of being persecuted, for one of the reasons set out in the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) (Cmd 9171) and its Protocol (1967) (Cmd 3906), had to be considered in the round and all the relevant circumstances of the case taken into account.
Accordingly, in cases concerning the periodic round-ups by the Sri Lankan authorities of young male Tamils in Colombo, their arrest and detention for questioning and loss of freedom for a few days, relevant circumstances for consideration included: the frequency of the round-ups, the length of the detentions resulting, the situation prevailing in Colombo at the material time, the government's undoubted need to combat Tamil terrorism, the true purpose of the round-ups and the efforts made to arrest and detain only those realistically suspected of involvement in the disturbances.
In asylum appeals, which were necessarily concerned in part with the situation prevailing in a particular foreign country, the date at which the assessment by the appellate authorities of risk was properly to be made was not confined to that of the Home Secretary's decision to refuse asylum. Thus recent improvements in the particular country were material.
The Court of Appeal so held dismissing (i) the appeals of Iyathurai Sandralingam and Senathirajah Ravichandran, against the dismissal by the Immigration Appeal Tribunal on January 19, 1995, of their appeals against the refusal of a special adjudicator of their appeals against the Home Secretary's refusal of asylum; and (ii) the application of Joseph Lawrence Rajendrakumar for judicial review to quash the dismissal on February 1, 1995, by a special adjudicator of his appeal against the Home Secretary's refusal of asylum.
Mr Ian Macdonald, QC and Mr Ian Lewis for the appellants and applicant; Mr Nigel Pleming, QC and Mr Robert Jay for the Home Secretary.
LORD JUSTICE SIMON BROWN said that the three appellants came to the United Kingdom in 1993 seeking asylum. Although from North Sri Lanka, each moved to Colombo.
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