“(1) This section applies where a person has made an asylum claim and – (a) his claim has been rejected by the Secretary of State, but (b) he has been granted leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom for a period exceeding one year (or for periods exceeding one year in aggregate). (2) The person may appeal to the Tribunal against the rejection of his asylum claim.”
“(4) The minimum standards laid down in this Directive on procedures in Member States for granting or withdrawing refugee status are therefore a first measure on asylum procedures. (5) The main objective of this Directive is to introduce a minimum framework in the Community on procedures for granting and withdrawing refugee status. (6) The approximation of rules on the procedures for granting and withdrawing refugee status should help to limit the secondary movements of applicants for asylum between Member States, where such movement would be caused by differences in legal frameworks. … (11) It is in the interest of both Member States and applicants for asylum to decide as soon as possible on applications for asylum. The organisation of the processing of applications for asylum should be left to the discretion of Member States, so that they may, in accordance with their national needs, prioritise or accelerate the processing of any application, taking into account the standards in their Directive. … (14) In addition, specific procedural guarantees for unaccompanied minors should be laid down on account of their vulnerability. In this context, the best interests of the child should be a primary consideration of Member States. … (27) It reflects a basic principle of Community law that the decisions taken on an application for asylum and on the withdrawal of refugee status are subject to an effective remedy before a court or tribunal within the meaning of Article 234 of the Treaty. The effectiveness of the remedy, also with regard to the examination of the relevant facts, depends on the administrative and judicial system of each Member State seen as a whole.”
“125. It is not in dispute that the English courts are able in asylum cases to review the Secretary of State’s refusal to grant asylum with reference to the same principles of judicial review as considered in the Soering case and to quash a decision in similar circumstances and that they have done so in decided cases. Indeed, the courts have stressed their special responsibility to subject administrative decisions in this area to the most anxious scrutiny where an appellant’s life or liberty may be at risk. Moreover, the practice is that an asylum seeker will not be removed from the UK until proceedings are complete once he has obtained leave to apply for judicial review. 126. While it is true that there are limitations on the powers of the courts in judicial review proceedings the Court is of the opinion that these powers, exercisable as they are by the highest tribunals in the land, do provide an effective degree of control over the decisions of the administrative authorities in asylum cases and are sufficient to satisfy the requirements of Article 13.”
“56. The Court is satisfied that the domestic courts gave careful and detailed scrutiny to claims that an expulsion would expose an applicant to the risk of inhuman and degrading treatment … The Court is not convinced … that the fact that this scrutiny takes place against the background of the criteria applied in judicial review of administrative decisions, namely rationality and perverseness, deprives the procedure of its effectiveness.”
“If the appellant’s father had been killed and his elder brother also killed and the appellant’s mother and uncle had paid an agent to help him reach the United Kingdom, then I find that the appellant having reached this country would have wanted to make contact with his surviving family members. The appellant stated that his mother and younger brother and uncle were living in the uncle’s house when he left Afghanistan, but when interviewed on6 October 2009 … the appellant was asked whether he had had any contact with his family since leaving his village and he said he had not. He said he had not tried to contact them and when asked why not, he said that he did not want to. I do not find those answers to be indicative that it is reasonably likely that the appellant’s account was credible. It is therefore my conclusion that the appellant had fabricated his claim …”
“The problem of ‘proof’ is great in every refugee status determination. It is compounded in the case of children. For this reason, the decision on a child’s refugee status calls for a liberal application of the principle of the benefit of the doubt. This means that should there be some hesitation regarding the credibility of the child’s story, the burden is not on the child to provide proof, but the child should be given the benefit of the doubt.”
“The crucial premise for the submission that the Upper Tribunal should have upheld the claim to asylum is that it was not entitled to draw any adverse inferences against these children from their failure to seek to contact family members in Afghanistan. I do not accept the premise; the onus is on the asylum seeker to make good the asylum claim, and that applies to children as it does to adults. It is true that the particular vulnerability of unaccompanied minors has led to special rules relating to the handling of their cases, such as in the way interviews are conducted, and there is a greater tendency to give them the benefit of the doubt where evidence is disputed … . But this does not involve any formal shift in the onus of proof. I do not suggest that it would in all cases be appropriate to draw an adverse inference that the child would be safely received merely from the failure of the child to try to make contact with his or her family. It will depend on a range of factors which would include the circumstances in which the child came to the UK, the age of the child and whether he or she has been encouraged to make contact. But in my judgment it is in principle an inference which it is legitimate for a court to draw where the evidence justifies it, and it was not an improper inference for the Upper Tribunal to make on the evidence before it.”
“… in asylum cases the appellate structure … is to be regarded as an extension of the decision-making process.”
“Is this Court lawfully precluded by a national procedural rule (Ravichandran) from ordering the Secretary of State to grant refugee status on the basis that an applicant would have qualified for it at the relevant time but for the denial of a right of appeal?”
“… to grant leave to remain to someone who has no risk on return, whose Convention rights will not be infringed by his return, and who has no other independent claim to remain here … is to use the power to grant leave to remain for a purpose other than that for which it is conferred.”
“Everyone whose rights and freedoms guaranteed by the law of the Union are violated has the right to an effective remedy before a tribunal in compliance with the conditions laid down in this Article.”