OA013842013 & ors

I have considered whether any parties require the protection of an anonymity direction. No anonymity direction was made previously in respect of these Appellants. Having considered all the circumstances and evidence I do not deem it necessary to make an anonymity direction.

This is an appeal by the Appellants against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Hague promulgated on 22 October 2013, which dismissed the Appellant�s appeal on all grounds.

The Appellants are all citizens of the Congo. The first two Appellants claimed to be the twin sons of Brigit Bingimenza (�the Sponsor�) who had applied for asylum in the United Kingdom and was granted status on 12 June 2012. They claimed to have been born on 30 December 1994. The third Appellant claimed he was born on 25 November 1995 and the fourth Appellant claimed she was born on 2 November 1996 and they claimed to be the Sponsor�s nephew and niece orphaned by the war and adopted by her on 10 June 2006.

The Appellants all applied for leave to join the sponsor in the United Kingdom. The applications of the first two Appellant were considered by reference to paragraph 352D of the Rules and in relation to the third and fourth Appellants both Rule 352D and 319X were considered.

On 29 November 2012 the Secretary of State refused the first two Appellants applications. The refusal letter reasons can be summarised as: it was accepted that the Appellants were the children of the Sponsor but their age was not accepted as being under 18; their birth certificates were not accepted as reliable evidence of age as they could not be verified; the Appellants did not appear from their photographs to be under 18; the birth certificates were not accepted to be genuine because of security and �other issues.�