Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: PA/09221/2017
& PA/09138/2017

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Glasgow
Decision and Reasons Promulgated
On 26 April 2018
On 30 April 2018

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MACLEMAN

Between

MUHAMMAD ASHRAF & ABEER ASHRAF
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION NOT MADE)
Appellants
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT

Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr S Winter, instructed by Maguire, Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mrs M O'Brien, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

DETERMINATION AND REASONS
1. The appellants are father and daughter, citizens of Pakistan.
2. This decision is to be read with:
(i) The respondent's decisions refusing the protection claims of the two appellants, both dated 8 September 2017.
(ii) The appellants' grounds of appeal to the FtT (in generic terms).
(iii) The decision of FtT Judge Handley, promulgated on 27 December 2017, dismissing both appeals.
(iv) The appellants' grounds of appeal to the UT, attached to their applications dated 9 January 2018 (in substance, the same grounds for each appellant).
(v) The grant of permission by Designated FtT Judge Shaerf, dated 22 January 2018.
(vi) The SSHD's rule 24 response, dated 13 February 2018, to the grant of permission.
3. Having heard the submissions, I indicated that the appeal to the UT would be dismissed, for the following reasons.
4. Ground 1 is at paragraph number 2 of the application, directed against paragraphs 30 and 33 of the decision.
5. This ground includes the most likely of the points advanced for the appellants. The question asked at the screening interview invited a brief explanation only. An attempt to force the second appellant into a marriage might be thought to go little further than the threat to abduct her which was stated by the first appellant.
6. Mrs O'Brien argued that he did outline his case quite clearly if succinctly, and that it was reasonable for the judge to have thought that such an important matter would have emerged. She also said that he clearly referred at the first stage to his step-brother, in the singular, which was different from a threat later said to come from his brother and three step-brothers, and no error by the judge.
7. The statement at the end of the ground 1, "? there is no indication if the screening interview was read back to the first and second appellant". The forms do not provide for interviews to be to read back. As Mrs O'Brien pointed out, the interview was carried out in accordance with usual practice and is signed by the appellant at the end. Mr Winter said nothing further on this part of the ground. It leads nowhere.
8. Ground 2 is paragraph number 3 of the application (last sub-paragraph only relied upon), directed against paragraph 34.
9. This ground misrepresents the judge's point. He did not say, contrary to the culture, that the second appellant and her mother would have lived on their own. He thought it unlikely that the first appellant would not have asked until 2015 to see property for which he had send significant sums of money over a 15 - 20 year period, and that the second appellant and her mother would not have asked to see it over a 5 year period. As Mrs O'Brien submitted, no case was advanced that they were so culturally subdued as not to ask an obvious question.
10. Ground 3 is paragraph number 4 of the application, directed against paragraph 37.
11. Mr Winter submitted that it was unclear whether the judge rejected only the evidence of the claimed attack on the appellants, or the entire account of hostility towards them.
12. As Mrs O'Brien argued, the judge did not take the simplistic view that if intended as a lethal assault that must have been accomplished. What was found concerning was that this was said to be a genuinely intended lethal assault, yet the attempt was abandoned on one potential victim suffering a panic attack, which made little sense.
13. It emerged in course of submissions that although the appellants said they moved before the attack, that was only within their home town of Sargodha, where the family members from whom they claim to be at risk also live.
14. The judge at paragraph 36 rejected the claim that the appellants might be at risk anywhere else in Pakistan. This was based in part on the substantive interview record - see Q/A 118 - 128.
15. The appellants made no case that they could not safely live in Karachi, Lahore, or elsewhere in Pakistan. As specified in the refusal decisions and in the FtT's decision, this was a case which even at its highest failed on grounds of internal relocation.
16. The grounds do not represent the decision fairly or as a whole, and do not amount to more than selective disagreement on the facts. At best, the first part of ground 1 might be established. That would not suffice to overturn the generally adverse credibility findings.
17. The grounds make no challenge to conclusions on internal relocation which were inevitably fatal to the case.
18. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal shall stand.
19. No anonymity direction has been requested or made.

26 April 2018
Upper Tribunal Judge Macleman