NEWS
Voters in European polls deliver a damning verdict on Labour as it is beaten by UKIP and sees BNP gain 2 MEPs. See
An agreement was reached on 4th June 2009 in which all 27 members of EU will share information provided by US about Guantanamo detainees before resettling the men. The information sharing agreement removes one of the major hurdles that Europe has to resettle Guantanamo detainees. See
A Devon law centre project to help unrepresented asylum seekers has demonstrated that the vast majority are wrongly refused legal help for their appeals. Fran Webber reports in an Institute of Race Relations article.
CASES
In R(on the application of SHAYANTH) v SSHD [2009] QBD (Admin) (LTL 3/6/2009) (unreported) where a European member state asked another state to assume responsibility for an asylum seeker's claim under the Dublin Convention the requesting state, was not under a continuing duty to supply the second state with information it received once the second state had assumed responsibility for the claim See
In R (ON THE APPLICATION OF HAYDER SADIQ AMIN) V SSHD [2009] QBD LTL1/6/09 (unreported) Mr Justice Blake held that there was nothing unlawful in the decision of the secretary of state to refuse an asylum claim and not apply a policy [Iraqi country bulletin paragraph 4.5] in a case where there had been doubts about X's nationality and credibility. In particular given the doubts about X's nationality and where he lived in 2002. There was nothing that amounted to an abuse of process or that was otherwise unfair in applying a more restrictive policy from the time when the relevant facts were accepted by the secretary of state and the adjudicator. It was only in 2006, at the earliest, that the secretary of state could have been said to have accepted that X resided in Iraq. Reading the Policy as a whole it required successful claimants to have established their eligibility under the Policy long before 2006. It would be inexplicable for a policy to be promulgated that was far more generous to people who had not established the existence of a well founded fear of persecution than those who had. Accordingly, whilst the secretary of state could not now say that she did not accept that X resided in government controlled Iraq, the date of the secretary of state's recognition of that fact was far too late to enable X to comply with para.4.5 Iraqi policy bulletin para 4.5.
In KAN (post study work - degree certificate required) INDIA [2009] UKAIT 00022 The requirement of paragraph 245Z and paragraphs 51 to 55 of Appendix A of HC 395 as amended is that in order to be entitled to points the applicant must have been awarded the requisite qualification in respect of which points are claimed. It is not sufficient to show that the qualification will be awarded. See
