Upper Tribunal (Immigration and asylum chamber), 2023-01-04, DC/00070/2018

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber)	Appeal Number: DC/00070/2018

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Field House by Microsoft Teams	Decision & Reasons Promulgated On the 4th January 2023
On the 23rd September 2022

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE GLEESON

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE RINTOUL

Between

D X (Albania)

[ANONYMITY ORDER MADE]

Appellant

and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT

Respondent

Representation:

For the appellant: Mr David Sellwood of Counsel, instructed by Oliver and Hasani Solicitors

For the respondent: Ms Susana Cunha, a Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The appellant, an Albanian citizen, appeals with permission from the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dismissing her appeal against the respondent’s decision on 24 October 2018 to deprive her of her British citizen status.

2. Anonymity order. Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant is granted anonymity. No-one shall publish or reveal any information, including the name or address of the appellant, likely to lead members of the public to identify the appellant. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

3. The Upper Tribunal apologises for the delay in promulgating this decision. When drafting and finalising the decision, we had a clear note and recollection of the appellant’s oral evidence and the submissions made at the hearing. This is the decision of us both.

Background

4. The appellant is a citizen of Albania, born there on 24 June 1978. Her account is that she left school in 1992 at 14 years old, with no qualifications, at her family’s insistence, and became a housewife. She would have liked to continue her education, but her family saw no point in educating women.

5. At 18, the minimum legal age for marriage, the appellant was forced into an arranged marriage to Yilber Spalgu, for economic and socio-political reasons not known to her. He was an influential individual and older than the appellant. After she married Mr Spalgu, the appellant went to live with him in Berat, which lies about two hours’ drive south of the Albanian capital, Tirana, and an hour and a half from the coastal town of Durres.

6. Following her marriage, the appellant learned that her husband was a member of a criminal organisation with connections to the local government in Berat. She was kept socially isolated and knew no more than that. Her husband subjected her to physical and sexual violence, which she reported to the authorities, but they refused to assist her. Her husband forced the appellant to become a sex worker and profited from that: she was unwilling but feared reprisals from her husband if she refused.

7. The appellant’s family were not helpful: they took her husband’s side, considering it shameful that she should complain of being a victim of domestic violence. They would not let her move home, nor would the male members of her family explain why the marriage was socially or politically important to her family.

8. In late January 1998, the appellant learned that her husband was planning to transfer her to traffickers who would use her as a sex worker in Europe. She persuaded her paternal aunt to help her escape her marriage and flee to the UK. She left Albania in February 1998, with instructions from the agent as to what to say on arrival. She was vulnerable and had no alternative but to do as she was told. She changed her name and appearance, and claimed to be a Kosovan woman called Aferdita Kuqi.

9. On arrival in the UK in June 1998 the appellant claimed asylum in the Kosovan identity. She was uneducated and spoke no English. Her clear understanding was that if she told the truth, she would be sent back to Albania to face persecution from her husband. The appellant considers that she was trafficked to the UK to escape persecution.

10. On 9 June 1999, the appellant was granted leave to enter in the false Kosovan identity. On 22 January 2002, the appellant was granted indefinite leave to remain and refugee status in her Kosovan identity. On 9 May 2002, the appellant was issued with a travel document in the Kosovan identity, and on 22 May 2006, she was naturalised as a British citizen, having applied in the Kosovan identity.

11. The appellant’s nationality and identity deception came to light in 2007 when the appellant sponsored her second husband to join her in the UK. She attended the British Embassy in Tirana with him, and submitted her original Albanian birth certificate in her true Albanian identity.

12. The appellant’s case was referred to the respondent’s Deprivation and Revocation Team in Liverpool.

Deprivation process

13. On 24 July 2008, the respondent wrote to the appellant in her Kosovan identity, setting out the facts and stating that the appellant had obtained settlement in the UK and British citizen status as a result of false representation. The respondent was considering deprivation of citizenship pursuant to section 40(3) of the British Nationality Act 1981(as amended by the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002). Deprivation would also remove any leave to remain previously granted. The appellant was invited to provide details of mitigation, private and family life, compassionate circumstances, and/or human rights issues which should be taken into account in considering deprivation.

14. On 16 September 2007, Markandan & Co, the appellant’s then solicitors, replied, seeking a change of naturalisation to the Albanian identity, saying that she ‘was a victim on the hands of traficants/criminals’ and saying that the appellant apologised deeply, understood the need for effective border controls, and had otherwise ‘been a person of very good character’. The respondent did not reply.

15. On 19 April 2011, Soods Solicitors, who had taken over the appellant’s case from Markandan & Co, chased the respondent for a response. Soods blamed the appellant’s previous ‘so-called immigration experts’ for giving her bad advice: the appellant had ‘perfectly valid conventional reasons to claim sanctuary as an Albanian’ and had arrived, ‘clearly traumatised and bewildered’ in the UK in 1998. As a lay person, she did what her advisers told her to do. The appellant realised that she ‘should have come clean a long time ago’ and apologised profusely for that. The appellant continued to resist deprivation of her British citizen status.

16. On 5 May 2011, Mr McVeety on behalf of the respondent maintained the notice of intention to deprive, commenting that the appellant appeared to have spent 31 days in total in 2002 and 2005 in Albania, despite claiming to have a well-founded fear of persecution there at the hands of her first husband or his family. If she had been genuinely in fear of her life in Albania, she should and would have claimed asylum in her true Albanian identity. The respondent was awaiting the outcome of a leading case before the Upper Tribunal before proceeding to make a decision on the appellant’s nationality.

17. On 25 March 2013, the respondent made a decision to deprive the appellant of her British citizenship, noting that she had been naturalised in the false Kosovan identity. Naturalisation had been obtained by means of impersonation. Her naturalisation was null and void and her British passport should be returned.

18. On 8 January 2018, following the decision of the Supreme Court in Hysaj & Ors, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] UKSC 82, the Secretary of State indicated that she would be reviewing the nullity decision.

19. On 8 February 2018, the appellant’s latest representatives, Lloyds PR Solicitors, made further representations. They said that the appellant had been trafficked into the UK, brought in by smugglers while escaping a hostile and abusive family life. The controlling and abusive marital relationship to which she was subject was known and reported to the authorities in Albania. The appellant had been coached as to how to respond to Home Office queries in order to seek refuge here. She still had indefinite leave to remain, following the withdrawal of the nullity decision. The appellant had worked and paid taxes and should not be deprived of her British citizen status.

20. On 10 February 2018, the respondent again gave notice of intention to deprive the appellant of her British citizen status, seeking mitigation, private and family life details, compassionate circumstances, and any human rights issues which should be taken not account when making a decision.

21. On 1 March 2018, Lloyds PR solicitors responded. The appellant admitted committing an act of fraud in her initial asylum claim, by declaring herself a Kosovan citizen with different identity details. After setting out her history the appellant was described as ‘of good character’ and Lloyds PR said she had learned to speak confident English. She had made a network of friends, and had a life and a part-time job in the UK, working in a coffee shop.

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