UI2024001837

For the Appellant: Ms E. Atas, Counsel instructed by Allied Law Chambers Solicitors

             This is an appeal against a decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Hamilton ("the judge") dated 17 October 2023 dismissing an appeal brought by the appellant, a citizen of Albania born in 1973, against a decision of the Secretary of State dated 23 November 2022 to refuse his human rights claim. The judge heard the appeal under section 82(1) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 ("the 2002 Act").

             The appellant appeals against the decision of the judge with the permission of Upper Tribunal Judge Reeds.

             This matter has an unusual procedural background. The appellant originally claimed asylum on the basis of a factual matrix which he has largely repeated in the course of the present human rights claim. The asylum claim was refused on 5 May 2021 and certified as "clearly unfounded" under section 94(1) of the 2002 Act ("the Asylum Decision"). There appears to have been no challenge to that decision or its certification.

             However, on 15 October 2020, while the asylum claim was pending, the appellant had made a human rights claim, based on the same factual matrix as the asylum claim, which at that point remained pending. The Asylum Decision did not determine the human rights claim, which remained pending until the decision of 23 November 2022 presently under appeal ("the Human Rights Decision"). In the course of her reasoning in the Human Rights Decision, the Secretary of State relied on the reasons given by the Asylum Decision.