‘FA (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA Civ 149 (22 February 2024). The Court of Appeal has held that the UT should have concluded that the FTT had failed to apply the current Iran country guidance cases to the appellant FA’s case, who was a Kurdish National of Iran who claimed to have left Iran illegally on foot, and claimed to have got married en route to the United Kingdom. He had entered the United Kingdom on 4 December 2019 and then claimed asylum. The SSHD rejected his claims for asylum and for humanitarian protection. The appeal was remitted to a different judge in the FTT for him to consider the question of risk to the appellant if he were returned to Iran. The Court of Appeal grappled with the two determinations at hand, i.e. the FTT determination and the UT determination which Elisabeth Laing LJ referred to as determination 1 and determination 2 during the course of her judgment. She touched on the effects of XX (PJAK – sur place activities – Facebook) Iran CG [2022] UKUT 23 (IAC), SSH and HR (Illegal Exit) Iran CG [2016] UKUT 308 (IAC), HB (Kurds) Iran CG [2018] UKUT 430 (IAC) and also BA (Demonstrators in Britain: Risk on Return) Iran CG [2011] UKUT 36 (IAC). The SSHD’s case was that FA admitted in his asylum interview that he was a supporter of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (“KDPI”) and not a member. The SSHD considered it strange that FA had not been introduced to the KDPI until he was 29 and considered that the answers to questions in the the asylum interview were inconsistent.’

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EIN Blog, 26th February 2024

Source: www.ein.org.uk