England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions

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Cite as: [2005] EWHC 3127 (Admin)

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		Neutral Citation Number: [2005] EWHC 3127 (Admin)
		CO/703/2005

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2

8th June 2005

B e f o r e :

MR JUSTICE RICHARDS
____________________

	THE QUEEN ON THE APPLICATION OF TCHUNUANGANG	(CLAIMANT)
	-v-
	SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT	(DEFENDANT)

____________________

Computer-Aided Transcript of the Stenograph Notes of
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____________________

The CLAIMANT did not attend and was not represented
MR ROBERT KELLAR (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared on behalf of the DEFENDANT
____________________

HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT
____________________

MR JUSTICE RICHARDS: This is a renewed application for permission to apply for judicial review. The claimant is a citizen of Cameroon who claimed asylum on arrival in the United Kingdom in June 1999. His application was refused by the Secretary of State in February 2001. An appeal against that refusal was dismissed by an Adjudicator on 5th December 2002.

The claimant claims to have left the United Kingdom at that point and to have returned to this country on 21st March 2003. He claimed asylum for the second time a few days later. That further claim was refused by the Secretary of State in July 2003. An appeal against the refusal was dismissed by an Adjudicator in a determination issued on 9th December 2003. In that determination, the Adjudicator rejected the claimant's account as to arrest, detention and ill-treatment. He found that the claimant did not face a real risk of persecution if returned to Cameroon, or a risk of a breach of relevant Articles of the Human Rights Convention. He found that the claimant would be of no interest to the authorities and that a failed asylum seeker who was not otherwise of interest to the authorities would not be at risk simply by virtue of his return as a failed asylum seeker. He found that the claimant had attended a political demonstration outside the Cameroon Embassy in London, but did not consider on the evidence that that alone would create a risk to the claimant if he was not otherwise of interest to the authorities.

Leave to appeal to the Immigration Appeal Tribunal was refused on 1st March 2004. A few days later, on 5th March 2004, the claimant's solicitors made further representations on his behalf to the Secretary of State, enclosing a number of further documents. In particular, there was a copy of a petition signed by the claimant on 6th November 2003 against the refusal of entry visas for Cameroon. There was publicity material for the CDC, the Cameroon Diaspora Coalition for voting rights. There was a photocopy of a card with the claimant's name stating: "29/1/04 Cameroon Embassy action". There were photographs said to show the claimant demonstrating in front of the Cameroon Embassy. There was a photograph said to show a member of staff at the Cameroon Embassy returning to the Embassy, having taken photographs of a demonstration outside it.

Those representations were rejected by the Secretary of State by letter dated 4th August 2004. That letter indicated at paragraph 6 that the approach taken to determining whether the representations constituted a fresh claim was to compare them with the earlier claim and form a view as to whether what was said was sufficiently different from the earlier claim that an Adjudicator might reasonably take a favourable view of the later claim, despite the rejection of the earlier one. For the reasons given in some detail, the conclusion reached was that the representations did not constitute anything sufficiently different as to justify the conclusion that an Adjudicator might reasonably take a favourable view of them. There were detailed comments about the documentary material provided, including indications that certain photographs had been disregarded because they were photocopies or were not clear. Limitations concerning the evidentiary significance of other photographs were spelt out and it was said that given the ease with which such evidence could be fabricated, the documents could not be considered credible evidence which would undermine the findings of the Adjudicator.

That decision letter was followed by further representations made on the claimant's behalf on 5th October 2004, pointing out that the Secretary of State had had originals of some of the photographs in his possession, and making submissions as to the reasonableness of the reasons given for refusing to treat the previous representations as a fresh claim.

The Secretary of State responded on 11th October 2004 making further detailed comments on the matters advanced but adhering to the original decision. That was followed by yet further representations in a letter of 17th October 2004 attaching a report by a Mr Momo, a Human Rights lawyer, concerning prison conditions in Cameroon. That resulted in a further decision letter by the Secretary of State on 25th October 2004, again adhering to the original decision. The claim for judicial review was lodged. It included further documents that had not been put before the Secretary of State. They were dealt with in a yet further decision letter dated 15th March 2005.

The grounds of the judicial review claim amount to a re-statement of the matters set out in the representations which have been rejected by the Secretary of State in the letters to which I have referred. Before I deal with what is said in relation to them by Mr Kellar on behalf of the Secretary of State, I should indicate that the claimant has not attended today's hearing, although there is on file a letter dated 6th May 2005 notifying the claimant of the date of the hearing. I could dismiss the application simply for non-attendance, but it seems to me that the best course is to consider the substance of the case and to deal with that since I have concluded, for reasons which I will spell out shortly, that permission should be refused in any event.

Mr Kellar submits that the legal test applied by the Secretary of State for determining whether the representation should be treated as a fresh claim was the correct one. I accept that submission. He submits that the various documents that were furnished with the further representations can be grouped into three categories. The first concerned the claimant's alleged membership of an organisation called SDF UK, one of the documents relevant in that context being the petition of November 2003. As to that, the petition pre-dated the hearing before the Adjudicator and the document could have been shown to the Adjudicator. Moreover, the Secretary of State's position is that the SDF is the largest political opposition party in Cameroon with seats in Parliament so that membership of its United Kingdom group would not be sufficient to bring the claimant adversely to the attention of the Cameroon authorities and create a risk to him on return.

The second group of documents concerned his alleged membership of the CDC, including a membership card and evidence of attendance at demonstrations at the Cameroon Embassy. This matter was dealt with by the Adjudicator in his decision. I have already referred briefly to what he said about attendance at that political demonstration outside the Cameroon Embassy. Moreover, in so far as the claimant had more things to say about CDC membership, it is apparent from one of the documents put forward on his behalf that he claims to have been a committed member of that organisation since 2002. Again, that pre-dated the hearing before the Adjudicator and he could have made any additional comments he wished to make at the hearing before the Adjudicator.

The third category of material is the report by Mr Momo on prison conditions in Cameroon. What is said in relation to that is that the reference to prison conditions does not assist the claimant since the Adjudicator found that he would not come to the attention of the authorities and that there is therefore no reason to consider that he would be subjected to the prison conditions referred to by Mr Momo. It is also quite clear that the report deals with people who have previously been arrested which does not cover the claimant's case, and other points are made to explain why the report cannot help the claimant's case.

It seems to me that all of the matters summarised by Mr Kellar in that way reflect the more detailed reasoning in the various decision letters. They are all valid points. The decision reached by the Secretary of State, and adhered to in the subsequent decision letters, was, in my judgment, plainly a reasonable decision in the proper application of the test to determine whether the representations amounted to a fresh claim. There is, in my judgment, no basis upon which this matter can properly be allowed to proceed. Accordingly, permission is refused.

Thank you very much, Mr Kellar.