Saaed v Secretary of State for the Home Department

This is a renewed application for permission to appeal from the decision of the AIT given on 31^st August, 2005. The appellant is a citizen of the Sudan who entered the country clandestinely in November 2004 and applied for asylum. He claimed to be a member of the Berti tribe from the Darfur region of Sudan. The main basis of his claim was alleged detention and ill-treatment by pro-Government Arab militia in 2004, arising from suspicion of his involvement with the Sudanese Liberation Movement. The Adjudicator accepted that he was a member of the Berti tribe from Darfur and that he had been detained in March 2004, but she concluded that his release without charge after fifteen days indicated that the authorities did not regard him as a member of the SLM or have other interest in him. She accepted that the background information indicated a risk for members of ethnic minorities returning to Darfur, but she considered that he would not be at risk if he relocated to Khartoum and it would not be unduly harsh to expect him to do so.

Permission to appeal was given by the Senior Immigration Judge on the grounds that:

“…the Adjudicator did not give adequate reasons for finding that the evidence of arrest of people from Darfur in Khartoum did not amount to persecution. The Amnesty Report does indicate that there is a possibility of arrest and ill-treatment. Arguably the Adjudicator was in error in not considering whether such risk would extend to the appellant having regard to his tribe and origins.”

However, although the AIT found that the Adjudicator’s conclusion was inadequately reasoned, they held that this failure was not “material” because the conclusion was open to her on the basis of the objective evidence. Permission to appeal to this Court was refused by Maurice Kay LJ on the papers in November 2005.

That was before the House of Lords gave its decisions in the case of Januzi v Secretary of State [2006] UKHL 5. Linked to the Januzi case were three Sudanese cases. Although the House of Lords confirmed the correctness of the “unduly harsh” test for internal relocation as previously applied, it allowed the appeals in the Sudanese cases (two of them by agreement) on the grounds that the risks to the appellants (all of whom came from Darfur) on relocation to Khartoum required more detailed consideration (see Lord Hope at paras 58-60).

Maurice Kay LJ had before him a twenty-one page Skeleton Argument signed by Mr Jafar, who had appeared before the AIT. Following the Januzi case, an amended Skeleton Argument was submitted, signed this time by Mr Basharat Ali, who also appeared before me. This was not in replacement of the previous Skeleton, but started by asserting that the previous submissions were to be relied on. Somewhat unhelpfully, the Skeleton sets out some five pages of quotations from the Januzi judgments, without indicating which particular passages were relied on or for what purpose.

Before me, Mr Basharat Ali sought to refine his Argument to some extent, but within the limited time available for the hearing, I found myself unable to do justice to the complexity of the printed Arguments. I therefore reserved my decision having heard his Arguments but I invited him to put in a short two page summary of his case as now presented. He has provided me with a “consolidated Skeleton Argument” running to three and a half pages with a detailed schedule, which I do not regard as conforming to what I requested. As I said to him, in these cases, if there is a good point of law justifying the attention of the Court of Appeal, it can normally be stated shortly. I remain unconvinced that the bulk of the various Skeleton Arguments represents more that an attempt to re-argue the facts of the case. However, in the light of Januzi, it does seem to be arguable that the relocation issue required more detailed consideration than was given by the Adjudicator. I therefore propose to grant Permission on that Ground alone, which I take as most helpfully stated in paragraph 8 of the consolidated Skeleton Argument dated 5^th May, 2006.

I will therefore grant Permission to Appeal on that ground and refuse Permission for all other Grounds (as variously stated in the original Grounds of Appeal and the subsequent Skeletons). I understand that the AIT is to hear the Sudanese cases remitted by the House of Lords in mid June 2006. I propose therefore to Stay any further proceedings on this appeal until the decision of the AIT in those cases has been published. The parties should consider in the light of those decisions what further steps, if any, should be taken in relation to this Appeal, and if necessary they should seek appropriate Directions.