Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal no: AA/00110/2016

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

At
Decision & Reasons Promulgated
on 25.04.2017
On 27.04.2017

Before:
Upper Tribunal Judge
John FREEMAN
Between:
Ahmet GURAZIU
appellant
and

respondent
Representation:
For the appellant: James Collins (counsel instructed by Marsh & Partners)
For the respondent: Mr Tom Wilding

DECISION AND REASONS
This is an appeal, by the , against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Judge John Hamilton), sitting at Hatton Cross on 7 July 2016, to an asylum and human rights appeal by a citizen of Albania, born 19 April 1988. The appellant arrived here and claimed asylum in September 2013, giving a history of a family feud over a long-running affair he had had with the wife of his cousin Xhevahir (X). Though he was interviewed in December 2013, his claim was not refused, with no explanation for the delay, till 15 January 2016.
2. Judge Hamilton accepted the appellant’s history of the feud, despite what he quite rightly described at paragraph 60 as “some very implausible aspects” of it. He also accepted, in line with EH (blood feuds) Albania CG [2012] UKUT 348 (IAC), that the police and other authorities would be unable to protect him against the consequences in his home area in northern Albania. None of this meant, of course, nor should have meant that the judge accepted everything the appellant said. This left internal relocation as the only live issue.
3. Permission to appeal was granted in the First-tier Tribunal for reasons relating to the merits of the judge’s decision on internal relocation, to which I shall come. It was not refused on the other ground, which referred to the delay of nearly four months between the hearing and the judge signing his decision on 3 November. The judge begins it by apologizing to the parties, citing ill-health.
4. The grounds relied on Akdogan [2000] EWHC Admin 289, though acknowledging the relatively recent decision of the Upper Tribunal in Arusha and Demushi (deprivation of citizenship - delay) Albania [2012] UKUT 80 (IAC). They did not make clear, however, that Arusha rested not on the Tribunal’s own authority, but on RK (Algeria) [2007] EWCA Civ 868. The law on this point is very clearly as set out in RK (Algeria), and glossed in Arusha: Akdogan should be treated as a decision on its own peculiar (and regrettable) facts, and not relied on in future.
5. I do not consider what the Tribunal said in Arusha at paragraph 40 about the records of proceedings available in both cases concerned as setting up a general requirement for that, in order to make a delayed decision safe, as required by RK (Algeria). However, once I had shown Mr Collins the very careful typed record kept by Judge Hamilton in this case, he was content not to take this point any further.
6. That leaves Mr Collins’ challenge to the judge’s decision on internal relocation: he made three points on it. First, he said that, in dealing with the possibility of returning to Tirana, the judge had not considered that it would be easier for X’s side of the family, as his cousins, to find him there; next, he had disregarded their wealth; last, he rejected the appellant’s evidence that X had influential friends in the police and elsewhere for no good reason.
7. It is clear throughout the judge’s review of the evidence that he realized that X was the appellant’s cousin; at paragraph 67 he clearly set out why the appellant claimed he would be at risk on return to another part of Albania. Before me, both sides referred to his paragraph 74. There he discusses the situation facing the appellant on return to Albania as follows:
The Appellant has an extended family in Albania … The background evidence is clear that families in Albania are very close-knit and the branches of the family not directly related to [X] are likely to be supportive.
8. While that does not deal in terms with the appellant’s case on the risks, rather than the lack of support he might face on return, it is in my view artificial to suggest that the judge did not have the extended family of both branches, X’s as well as the appellant’s, in mind when dealing with his likely situation.
9. So far as X’s family wealth is concerned, the judge dealt with it at paragraph 29. Referring to a document produced by the appellant he said this:
The Appellant claimed X or [his wife]’s brothers were wealthy and influential but did not seem to be saying how they fell into either of those categories. He did not give any real detail about their wealth and influence and no other evidence was produced to support this claim.
10. This was based on the following passage in the appellant’s interview: at Q140 he had suggested that X and his in-laws could pursue him, at least on mainland Europe, which was why he had come to this country
… because they can travel freely across Europe with their passports because they are wealthy and they can locate me as they have money.
Q. 141 Who has money?
A X and [his wife’s brothers] are wealthy.
The interviewer then moved on to the question of how the appellant had come to this country from Albania (in a closed lorry).
11. Mr Collins suggested that it had been unfair of the judge to hold this apparent failure to give details of X’s family wealth against the appellant, since he had not been given a proper opportunity to do so at interview. However, besides the usual invitation to add anything he wished at the end, the appellant was represented before the judge by very experienced specialized counsel (Mr Collins) who would have been well aware that it was for him to make his case on this point, and that mere assertion was unlikely to be enough.
12. While it would certainly have been better practice for the interviewer to go further into this question, the appellant did have a full opportunity to correct the position himself, and I do not think the judge can be regarded as wrong in law to deal with the question on the basis of the evidence as it stood before him.
13. As for the appellant’s claim that X’s family had friends and influence in the police, again the passage cited might have provided a chance for him to mention it. While it is true he was not asked, he had not said anything to suggest such connexions, and I do not think the interviewer can be blamed at all for not investigating the possibility. When it came to the appellant’s oral evidence on the point, the judge set it out very clearly at paragraphs 34 – 35:
X was his cousin, so he knew whom he used to mix with. X had friends who worked with the police. In about 2011 he had been walking in Shkoder1 and saw X having coffee with a number of uniformed police officers. This happened on 3 or 4 occasions.
14. On that basis, I do not think the judge can be criticized for dealing with this evidence as he did at paragraphs 71 – 72. Even ordinary common sense should have made the appellant aware that it was likely to make an important part of his case, and the judge was fully entitled to comment on its absence, not only from his answers at interview, but from his witness statement, carefully and professionally taken by his solicitors; and for the lack of any explanation for that elicited by Mr Collins in his oral evidence. As for the appellant’s claimed memory problems, I was not referred to any medical evidence to support this, and Mr Collins wisely did not pursue this point.
15. All in all, I think this appellant received a fair and full decision from the judge, who had accepted a good deal more of case than he might have done, but gave satisfactory reasons for what he did not accept.

Appeal
(a judge of the Upper Tribunal)
25.04.2017