Evidential Challenges for Decision Makers in Asylum Cases: HK v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] EWCA Civ 1037
by Katia Bianchini
Question(s) at stake
1) Whether the Tribunal erred in law in rejecting as not credible the account of the appellant that he feared persecution by hands of a Sierran Leonian secret society after he escaped from them. 2) Whether the Tribunal erred in law in finding that the Appellant could reasonably live in his home town and shield himself from any form of danger.
Outcome of the ruling
The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the Tribunal erred in law when it found that (1) the claim made by the Appellant (that he feared persecution by members of a secret society) was not credible; and (2) the Appellant could live in his home town and evade danger.
Country:
Official citation
HK v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] EWCA Civ 1037
Topic(s)
Keywords:
Applicant's credibility Refugee status Well-founded fear Refusal of asylum
Tag(s):
Expert evidence Witchcraft Cult
Bibliographic information
Access case report
View case report in the CUREDI databaseAbout the authors
Katia Bianchini (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Department Law and Anthropology, Germany)
Katia Bianchini is a Research Fellow of the Law and Anthropology Department of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. She holds a law degree from the University of Pavia (Italy), an LL.M. in Comparative Laws from the University of San Diego (California, USA), and a Ph.D. in Law from the University of York (UK). Her doctoral thesis provided an empirical and legal analysis of how the 1954 UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons is implemented in ten EU states. She has also worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (Göttingen). Before engaging in research, she practised immigration and refugee law for ten years in the UK and the USA.
Bianchini has published in the field of refugee law, statelessness, and the rule of law in the context of sea migration. Her current research builds on her expertise in human rights and Italian law and looks at the treatment of deceased sea migrants in the South of Italy.