S v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Srilanka)

This is an appeal from a decision of an adjudicator (Miss C Griffith), sitting at Taylor House on 5 September 2002, allowing an asylum and human rights appeal by a Tamil citizen of Sri Lanka. The grounds of appeal suggest, among other things, that there is nothing to show that this case falls into the exceptional category required for it to succeed, in terms of the Presidential decision in Jeyachandran [2002] UKIAT 01869 .

. .. it is only in exceptional cases that a person returned to Sri Lanka will attract the attention of the authorities there and that such persons are likely to be limited to those who are wanted persons. The question is whether the case of the applicant is an exceptional case as a person likely to be of interest to the Sri Lankan authorities and so likely to be detained, it being conceded that, once he is detained, there is a substantial risk of persecution.

I accept that the Tribunal examines the situation in the country from which the refugee is fleeing as at the date of its determination. However in the present case in my judgment there was nothing wrong with the adjudicator's determination, there was therefore no reason to appeal it and it would be wrong for the Home Secretary, on the back of an appeal which has been dismissed, to seek to re-examine the threat to the refugee with reference to a date later than the adjudicator's determination.

The reference to an appeal being dismissed is slightly curious, as the adjudicator had allowed the claimant's appeal, and the Tribunal had allowed the Home Office appeal from that; but one can see what was meant.

� 1998 assisting Tamil Tigers at the front, as a medical orderly, initially under duress, but with some weapons training, and at one stage taking part in the fighting