Suicidal refugee loses date of birth appeal
A Palestinian refugee threatening to take his own life in a dispute over the age recorded on his residence permit has lost a judicial review at the Court of Appeal. The case (WA (Palestinian Territories)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [ ...
15th January 2021Court of Appeal rejects lowering threshold for denying refugee status to extremists
How serious must a person’s “extremism” be to justify exclusion from the Refugee Convention? Three years ago, the Court of Appeal in Youssef & N2 v Secretary of State for the Home Department lowered the bar for exclusion from the Co ...
14th January 2021Briefing: new UK approach to refugees and safe third countries
The government has introduced important new rules on the handling of claims for asylum with effect from 1 January 2021. Guidance for Home Office asylum caseworkers was published the day before, on 31 December, fleshing out some of the operational deta ...
11th January 2021Important Court of Appeal judgment on expert evidence and “credibility”
The Court of Appeal has handed down a major judgment on the correct approach to assessing whether a person is a victim of trafficking: MN v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 1746. Although this was the central question in the ...
4th January 2021Asylum right to work policy unlawfully overlooks trafficking victims
Home Office policy on permission to work for asylum seekers is unlawful to the extent that it doesn’t make allowances for potential victims of human trafficking, the High Court held today. The policy will now have to be reworked to make clear th ...
18th December 2020New research: 34 ways to improve asylum appeals
Much has changed about the way asylum appeals in the First-tier Tribunal operate this year. But research spanning 2013 to 2019 indicates that a reliably fair and effective asylum appeal system was some way off even before the pandemic hit. Today the U ...
17th December 2020