A Brighton charity has helped a young asylum-seeker to win refugee status after a six-year battle that ended up being decided in the Court of Appeal.
The refugee, identified only as MAH, was 14 when he fled Egypt after his father, a mechanic, was arrested and jailed. MAH was 15 when he reached Sussex.
He said that his father was pious and believed that the authorities in Egypt thought that he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood although MAH did not know whether he was.
MAH claimed asylum on arrival and three months later, just after he turned 16, his case was taken up by BHT Sussex, formerly Brighton Housing Trust.
Shortly after his six-year administrative and legal battle began, his father died in prison, with MAH fearing that he would be arrested and detained if he returned to Egypt.
The judges at the Court of Appeal – Lady Justice King, Lord Justice Singh and Lord Justice Warby – accepted that there was “a reasonable degree of likelihood” that this was the case.
Their judgment sad: “The appellant’s father was incarcerated in Liman 440, part of the Wadi Al Natroun prison complex which is described in expert evidence as being notorious for torturing political prisoners and specifically members of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Two other family members were subsequently arrested. After being released, they fled to other countries, the court was told.
And the authorities in Egypt had come looking for MAH, he said, and stopped only after learning that he had left the country. He is now 22 years old.
At the Court of Appeal, MAH was represented by David Jones and David Sellwood, of Garden Court Chambers, in what the judges said was a case with “a complicated history”.
The barristers were instructed by Olivia Cavanagh and Kate Jessop, of BHT Sussex.
Garden Court Chambers said: “In a highly unusual move, the Court of Appeal has set aside a decision from the Upper Tribunal dismissing a refugee protection appeal, and re-made the decision for itself, allowing the appeal outright and recognising the appellant as a refugee.
“(MAH) was a minor when he first claimed asylum but his appeal went back and forth between the First-tier and Upper Tribunals, culminating in the Upper Tribunal’s latest decision being promulgated after MAH reached adulthood.
“The Upper Tribunal accepted that MAH’s father had indeed been arrested and imprisoned. It also accepted he had died in a prison notorious for housing political prisoners.
“It did not, however, accept that those events arose as a result of an actual or perceived association with the Muslim Brotherhood.
“The Court of Appeal disagreed. It concluded that the Upper Tribunal had imposed the wrong standard of proof, requiring something more exacting than what was in fact required in refugee protection claims, ie, a ‘reasonable degree of likelihood’.
“It had required corroborative evidence when there is no such requirement in law. Ultimately, the court found there was only one conclusion reasonably open to it: that MAH was a refugee.
“The court’s judgment helpfully sets out the key principles relevant to refugee status determination, including the correct standard of proof, credibility and the role of appellate courts in such cases.
“Importantly, it also identifies the correct approach to the Immigration Rules that are concerned with giving applicants ‘the benefit of the doubt’ in refugee protection claims.”
To read the judgment, click here.
Six years…and that’s a pretty clear case legally. Evidence of why our asylum process is backlogged to such a degree.