Decision Not to Allow Somalian Man to Make Fresh Asylum Application Quashed

The High Court in Belfast has quashed the Home Secretary’s decision not to allow a Somalian man to make a fresh asylum application nearly 15 years after absconding during the asylum process. Omaar Ismail fled from Somalia in 2002 and claimed asylum in the UK shortly after arriving in London in early 2003. After absconding in the aftermath of his screening interview, his claim was refused and the appeal subsequently filed by his lawyers was dismissed without hearing. He remained in the UK and moved to Belfast in 2017 because he had a friend who lived there. Mr Ismail “kept my head in the sand about my irregular immigration status throughout all of these years”, he said in an affidavit. In autumn 2017, he approached a solicitor in Belfast to help him make a fresh asylum application and subsequently availed of the “further submissions” process under paragraph 353 of the Immigration Rules.

Mr Justice Adrian Colton, delivering the judgment for the High Court, said it was “clear that a fundamental aspect of the applicant’s submission is that he has no nuclear family in Mogadishu”, an assertion which was rejected by the decision-maker. “I recognise that the decision was not made solely on the basis of the absence of a nuclear family in Mogadishu but that consideration was clearly central to the decision,” the judge said. “I cannot therefore accept that in respect of the evaluation of the facts in his consideration the Secretary of State has satisfied the requirement of anxious scrutiny.” The judge considered that the appropriate remedy is an order of certiorari quashing the impugned decision of the Home Secretary. The matter should be referred back for reconsideration by a different decision-maker and remaking of the decision, he said.

Read more: Scottish Legal News, https://is.gd/PzsJC4