Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: PA/00545/2015

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Glasgow
Decision & Reasons Promulgated
on 12 October 2016
on 19 October 2016

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MACLEMAN

Between

L L
(anonymity direction MADE)
Appellant

and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr B Price, of Latta & Co, Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr A Mullen, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

DETERMINATION AND REASONS

1. The appellant appeals against a decision by First-tier Tribunal Judge Clough, dismissing her appeal against refusal of recognition as a refugee from China.
2. The appellant's grounds are as follows.
A. Error in application of the general rules to the particular factual situations that define the frontiers of the legal rule and its practical scope.
The judge states at paragraph 10 that she does not accept that the appellant was a Roman Catholic as the appellant had a sketchy knowledge of the faith. The judge was provided with UNHCR guidelines ? and Zhang v Canada ? Both the UNHCR guidelines and Zhang make it clear that extensive knowledge or testing of knowledge of religion is not necessary or useful in assessing whether or not person is religious? The judge has failed to apply the .. guidance ? when assessing the credibility of the appellant, and instead based her negative decision on credibility on lack of knowledge.
The judge also applies ? QH China CG [2014] UKUT 86 ? at paragraphs 11 and 12 ? and finds that even if the appellant has credible she is not in danger in China? The judge has failed to assess or consider the additional risk factors? outlined at paragraphs 134 (links to international groups, i.e. the Roman Catholic Church based in Rome, Italy, Europe) and 135 (socio-economic and educational profile, in particular her original immigration status in the UK as a student) of the relevant country guidance. If the judge has considered and applied this, then there is no reference at all as to the findings made no reasons are given as to why to said that there is no danger to the appellant in light of the enhanced risk categories in play?
B. Error where a tribunal makes a finding for which there is no evidence or which is inconsistent with the evidence and contradictory of it.
At paragraph 14 the judge makes a finding that the appellant will face civil penalties in China. However, at paragraph 18 the judge states that there are no obstacles to the appellant's integration into China with her family. These are contradictory findings in fact that have not been reconciled. That are civil penalties that the appellant must face then clearly the obstacles to her re-establishing a life in China.
3. In a written response under rule 24 the respondent argues as follows.
The respondent provided a number of reasons for rejecting the appellant's claim to have converted to Roman Catholicism? outlined at paragraph 7 of the determination and, in any event, matters of which the appellant was fully aware. It is clear from the determination at paragraph 10 that the judge has reviewed the respondent's reasoning and has adopted it.
This was an approach open to the judge? judges are required to provide brief and clear reasons to explain to the parties why they have won or lost. This is what the judge has done
It was ? open to the judge to reject the credibility of the appellant's conversion. The judge considered the appellant in the alternative that she was a convert but rejected her contention that she would behave in such a way as to bring itself into conflict [with the authorities] for the reasons given paragraph 12.
The judge has found that the appellant's problems as a result of the birth of her child would be a civil matter and has followed AX China CG [2012] UKUT 97 which on examination does not indicate a real risk to the appellant.
There is no contradiction between a person [facing] civil penalties in China and the being no problem to integration. There is no? evidence? that failure to comply with civil law [is] a bar to reintegration.
The grounds amount to a disagreement with clear well-reasoned findings.
4. The appellant replies in writing under rule 25 along the lines that the appellant's limited knowledge is the only reason given for rejecting her conversion, which does not explain why the decision went the way it did, and is an error of law; the judge failed to consider the additional risk factors in terms of QH and the facts of this case; and that civil penalties are obstacles to reintegration, such that the judge's findings are self-contradictory.
5. Mr Bryce submitted along the same lines as the written pleadings. The judge's only reasons for finding the appellant not to be a Roman Catholic were at paragraph 10. That amounted to the limitations of her religious knowledge, and adoption of the reasoning of the Secretary of State, summarised at paragraph 7. The respondent's decision in turn was based only on lack of knowledge. It is well established that limited knowledge of religion is not a good guide to rejecting a claimed conversion. The decision was reached on an unsound basis. Ground A showed secondly that the judge failed to consider additional risk factors. Ground B identified contradictory findings. The judge might have said that the civil penalty was not a significant obstacle to reintegration, but it was not open to her to find that it would be no obstacle. The test to be addressed was "significant obstacles". Success on either grounds of appeal should lead to a remit to the First-tier Tribunal.
6. Mr Mullen submitted that the judge's reasons were brief, but nevertheless sufficient. There were clear guidelines on the danger of using knowledge of religion as a criterion, but these were only rules of thumb. They were not rules that the degree of knowledge was entirely irrelevant; in this case, near to complete ignorance. It was not an error to adopt the reasoning of one party to a case, if that reasoning was self-sufficient. The appellant had provided very little evidence of her claim to be a Roman Catholic. There had been no attendance by a church member to support her case. The judge correctly took account of adverse findings made by another judge dealing with the appeal of the appellant's husband. The appellant was to be removed only in family, and had no realistic case on any grounds. The judge was entitled to find no significant obstacle to her reintegration into China. The decision should stand.
7. Mr Price in reply said that although there had been no witness in attendance, several supporting statements were among the written evidence. The decision by another judge was admittedly not irrelevant, but it did not affect the need to assess whether there were significant obstacles to the reintegration of the appellant.
8. I reserved my decision.
9. The case should be looked at sensibly in the round.
10. The general risk to professing Christians in China is, as Judge Clough said at paragraph 11, "statistically negligible". The appellant professed no activity or intended activity which carried any realistic chance of bringing upon her persecution by the Chinese government. She knew little about her religion. Generous application of relevant guidelines, the international status of the Church, and the appellant's presence in the UK as a student, could not come near to qualifying the appellant for protection as a refugee on religious grounds.
11. The potential imposition of a civil penalty does not qualify the appellant for protection on the basis of Chinese family planning policy. It is plainly not a barrier to reintegration qualifying her for leave to remain in the UK.
12. The grounds do not amount to more than further insistence on a case of no real underlying substance. They do not show that the judge erred on any point of law, so as to require the decision to be set aside.
13. The determination of the First-tier Tribunal shall stand.
14. An anonymity direction was made in the FtT. The issue was not addressed in the UT, so that order remains in force, and the appellant is referred to only by initials.

18 October 2016
Upper Tribunal Judge Macleman