Tribunal decisions

The decision

IAC-AH-KRL-V1

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: PA/03332/2015

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Birmingham
Decision & Reasons Promulgated
On 20 February 2017
On 22 March 2017

Before

DR H H STOREY
JUDGE OF THE UPPER TRIBUNAL

Between

mr Solomon Gebregziabher
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION NOT MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr J Howard, Fountain’s Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr D Mills, Home Office Presenting Officer

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The appellant who claims to be a national of Eritrea, has permission to challenge the decision of First-tier Tribunal (FtT) Judge Gribble sent on 18 July 2016 dismissing his appeal against a decision made by the respondent on 27 November 2015 refusing to grant him asylum or humanitarian protection.

2. The first three grounds advanced by the appellant amount to this. It is submitted that the judge gave inadequate reasoning for not accepting that the appellant was Eritrean and for finding he was Ethiopian; failed to apply the correct test by reference to the 1992 Eritrean Nationality Proclamation; and failed to properly apply ST (Ethnic Eritrean – nationality – return) Ethiopia CG [2011] UKUT 00252 (IAC).

3. I find that none of these grounds is made out. In the first place, there was no inadequacy of reasons given by the judge for her findings on nationality. The judge took account the state of the evidence as to appellant’s language abilities and the plain fact that his mother tongue was Amharic; the evidence as regards where he was born and where his parents were born; to his failure to explain satisfactorily why he was not removed to Eritrea in 2000; and to the inconsistencies and omissions in the form he had signed as being true when he approached the Ethiopian Embassy.

4. In the second place the contention that the judge failed to apply the correct test (which required assessment of the appellant’s nationality in the context of Eritrean nationality law) is not established. It is true that the judge did not refer to any Eritrean nationality law sources; but it is plain that she took the contents of the 1992 Eritrean Nationality Proclamation as her starting point. The judge did not reject the appellant’s claimed nationality through any incorrect understanding of this law. The judge simply relied on the lack of satisfactory evidence to show that the appellant fell within any of that law’s criteria for nationality. The grounds underline the wording of Article 2(1) of the Proclamation (“Any person born to a father or mother of Eritrean origin in Eritrea or abroad is an Eritrean national by birth”), but on the judge’s assessment the appellant had failed to prove his father or mother was of Eritrean origin.

5. In the third place, the attempt in the grounds to argue that the judge misapplied ST does not bear scrutiny. The grounds underscore the statement in ST that “there is no need to suppress details which disclose an Eritrean connection”. Yet on the judge’s assessment the appellant did not suppress details which went to his Eritrean connection; the critical problem was that the appellant simply gave details that were inconsistent and incomplete. The grounds also protest that the judge gave inadequate reasoning as to why she considered the appellant had filled in the form to the Ethiopian Embassy in a “deliberately misleading” manner; but I consider that a mere disagreement with the judge’s evaluation of the evidence. The judge properly identified that the appellant’s statement on the embassy form that his parents were born in Assab was a lie, in view of the fact that he had been clear in his AIR (Q46) that he did not know where his parents were born. In that form the appellant also failed to tick the box requiring him to give his marital status and made no mention of his wife, even though filling in the name, age and nationality of their child (as Eritrean). It was entirely open to the judge to conclude that these were not innocent errors or omissions.

6. Grounds 4 and 5 challenge the judge’s finding that the appellant is a national of Ethiopia. It is submitted that her reasons for this finding were inadequate and that in any event she had failed to assess whether there would be risk to the appellant on return to Ethiopia by virtue of his being an ethnic Eritrean. Dealing with the fifth ground first, it gets nowhere simply because it is clear from the judge’s assessment that the appellant had failed to establish he was an ethnic Eritrean. The judge found at para 45 that he was “a native speaker of Amharic ethnicity” and did not accept his claimed links to Eritrea. To have any life of its own this ground of challenge would have to demonstrate some flaw in the judge’s reasons for concluding he was a national of Ethiopia, not Eritrea that circles back to the fourth ground.

7. As regards the fourth ground I do not consider there was any lack of reasons, on the part of the judge for concluding the appellant was Ethiopian, paragraphs 41-57 set out these reasons out very clearly, they in essence being that the evidence regarding his ties to Ethiopia was compelling.

8. Going back to the fifth ground, the judge gave cogent reasons at paragraphs 58-60 why the appellant had failed to show he would be at risk on return to Ethiopia.

9. For the above reasons I conclude that the FtT Judge did not err in law and accordingly her decision to dismiss the appellant’s appeal must stand.

No anonymity direction is made.

Signed Date: 21 March 2017

Dr H H Storey
Judge of the Upper Tribunal