All Articles: Albania

As the government’s Rwanda plan continues to court controversy, there is one area of their policy which by their measures could be seen to be succeeding: their efforts to stop Albanians from seeking refuge in the UK. Since 2019, the Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit at Islington Law Centre...

13th March 2024
BY Richard Crellin

This is our write up of the first of the Home Secretary’s recent dump of the much delayed reports from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. The one point I will make from the outset is that anyone who is working on Albanian claims should read the relevant...

6th March 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Permission has been granted in a judicial review case where an Albanian man claiming asylum had his claim certified on the basis that he was from a ‘safe country’, meaning that he was not allowed to appeal. There was also an unlawful detention claim. The case is R (H) v...

9th November 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

On 25 August 2022, the Home Office announced plans to fast-track the removal of Albanian nationals “with no right to be in the UK” under plans agreed with the Albanian government (it was said) “to tackle the scourge of small boat crossings”. The fast-track removal scheme appeared to be explicitly...

29th September 2022
BY Jed Pennington

In its ongoing drive to reduce Channel crossings, the government has set its sights on arrivals from a “safe and prosperous” Albania. A marked increase in Albanian arrivals via the Channel have been reported over the past year, prompting the former Home Secretary to seek further agreement with the Albanian...

23rd September 2022
BY Irene Tsherit

All asylum seekers, including children and young people, find that the starting point for any official making a decision in their case is to doubt their narratives and subject them to disbelief and incredulity. Even in this climate of disbelief, Albanian asylum claims have been singled out for particular hostility. ...

7th October 2020
BY Esme Madill

The Upper Tribunal has confirmed that it is for asylum seekers to disprove the possibility of safe and reasonable internal relocation if the Home Office identifies a potential safe haven. In MB (Internal relocation – burden of proof) Albania [2019] UKUT 392 (IAC), the Upper Tribunal reconsidered the earlier decision...

23rd December 2019
BY Alex Schymyck

This week the Court of Appeal quashed the certification of an Albanian asylum claim as “clearly unfounded”. In SP (Albania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 951, the court found that the Home Office had not properly investigated the appellant’s account of being persecuted before...

21st June 2019
BY Larry Lock

AL (Albania) [2019] EWCA Civ 950 is a new Court of Appeal judgment which says some important things about the approach a tribunal judge should take to factual findings made by another tribunal judge in a related appeal. In this case, AL’s elder brother had claimed asylum on much the...

13th June 2019
BY David Neale

There are growing concerns around the Home Office’s treatment of children and young people from Albania, with legal practitioners now raising the alarm about the increasing certification of Albanian asylum applications as ‘clearly unfounded’. At the same time, significant gaps in evidence are consistently acting as a barrier to successful...

5th June 2019
BY Maya Pritchard

Government guidance asserts that an asylum claim based on a blood feud in Albania is likely to be certifiable as clearly unfounded under section 94 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. In my view, this is fundamentally misconceived. Certification under section 94 is a draconian measure which deprives...

16th April 2019
BY David Neale

LC (Albania)  v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 340. The Home Office has relied on outdated guidance to determine asylum applications from Albanian nationals, the Court of Appeal has held. The judgment in LC (Albania) will have far-reaching effects for those people denied protection under...

12th May 2017
BY Thomas Beamont
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