‘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.’
EIN Blog, 26th February 2024
Source: www.ein.org.uk
‘A high court hearing designed to resolve the UK’s non-payment of a £400m debt to Iran has been postponed again, leaving the families of dual nationals detained in Iran distraught since they believe the debt is critical to their release of loved ones.’
The Guardian, 19th April 2021
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘What is “genuine conversion” to Christianity for the purposes of an asylum claim by a fugitive from Iran? In PS (Christianity – risk) Iran CG [2020] UKUT 46 (IAC), the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the Upper Tribunal considered the current Country Guidance on asylum-seekers from Iran in the light of two questions: whether the situation in Iran for “ordinary” converts to Christianity had changed since the decision in SZ and JM (Christians – FS confirmed) Iran CG [2008] UKAIT 00082; and whether there was a real risk of persecution for persons who had engaged in Christian activities abroad, regardless of whether or not they held a genuine religious belief in Christianity.’
Law & Religion UK, 27th February 2020
Source: www.lawandreligionuk.com
‘Iran International did not breach the broadcasting code by interviewing a spokesman for a separatist group who praised last September’s terrorist attack in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, the British regulator Ofcom has ruled.’
The Guardian, 26th March 2019
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘A London-based satellite news station is being formally investigated by Ofcom after broadcasting an interview with an extremist group that claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack in Iran.’
The Guardian, 3rd December 2018
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘A retired company boss who made £5 million from trafficking fighter jet parts to Iran in violation of Weapons of Mass Destruction controls has been jailed for two-and-a-half years.’
Daily Telegraph, 22nd November 2018
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
‘Bank Mellat, an Iranian firm whose assets were frozen due to alleged involvement in nuclear proliferation, has won a European Union court ruling paving the way for claims against the UK.’
The Guardian, 18th February 2016
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
‘Bank Mellat is an Iranian bank, initially subjected to a 2009 order which prohibited anybody in the UK from dealing with it – until the Supreme Court quashed it: here, and my posts here and here. ‘
UK Human Rights Blog, 28th October 2015
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘The Court of Appeal has cleared the way for the Government to apply for controversial secret court hearings as it faces being sued for damages by an IRA informant and Iranians subjected to asset freezing orders.’
The Independent, 14th July 2015
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘R (on the application of Lord Carlile of Berriew QC and others) (Appellants) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) [2014] UKSC 60. The exclusion of a dissident Iranian from the UK, on grounds that her presence would have a damaging impact on our interests in relation to Iran, has been upheld by the Supreme Court.’
Uk Human Rights Blog, 12th November 2014
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘The Iranian government is taking a Ministry of Defence-owned company to the High Court to end a £400m row over British-made Chieftain tanks that has dragged on for 35 years.’
The Independent, 2nd February 2014
Source: www.independent.co.uk
“The taxpayer faces a bill for up to £1 billion after the Government was sued by an Iranian bank that claimed it had been wrongly placed on a sanctions blacklist.”
Daily Telegraph, 19th August 2013
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“On 19 June 2013, the Supreme Court gave judgment in the case of Bank Mellat v HM Treasury (No. 1) and (No. 2). Gavin Irwin reviews the latest developments in the deployment of sanctions against Iran and the tensions that can arise between international organisations, nation states and commercial entities.”
Full story (PDF)
Dyers Chambers, 11th July 2013
Source: www.dyerschambers.com
“Last week, the Supreme Court gave judgment in Bank Mellat v Her Majesty’s Treasury (no.1) [2013] UKSC 38. The Bank Mellat case involved financial restrictions imposed by HMT on the Bank under the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 (“the 2008 Act”), on the basis that it enabled funding for Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. The High Court and Court of Appeal had both adopted a closed material procedure (“CMP”) – i.e. a procedure in which the court sits in private, and hears evidence and/or submissions without one party either being present or seeing the material – in order to consider sensitive material adduced by HMT which could not be disclosed to the Bank. They had specific statutory authority to do so under the 2008 Act. The Supreme Court did not have such authority. The relevant questions were whether it was possible for the Supreme Court to adopt a CMP on appeal, in the absence of specific statutory provision; and if so, whether it was appropriate to do so in that particular case. The Supreme Court was faced with the difficulty of reconciling two strong but opposing interests. On the one hand, it was important that the Court should be able to see and consider any relevant material before the High Court and Court of Appeal. On the other, the Supreme Court itself in Al Rawi v Security Service [2012] 1 AC 531 had uncompromisingly set its face against any derogation from the open justice principle. The Supreme Court was divided; but the majority considered that the Court had implied authority to adopt a CMP under its powers conferred by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, where the lower courts had themselves used a CMP. Nevertheless, the Court was uncomfortable about doing so, and expressed that discomfort in strong terms.”
Panopticon, 25th June 2013
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
“The Supreme Court had jurisdiction to entertain a closed material procedure on an appeal from decisions of the courts of England and Wales on applications brought under section 63 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008. On very rare occasions it would be appropriate for the court to go into closed session for that purpose and in the circumstances of the present appeal it would do so.”
WLR Daily, 19th June 2013
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
“My post of earlier this week explained why the majority of the Supreme Court struck down a direction telling all financial institutions not to deal with this Iranian Bank. The legal ground (involving, as Lord Sumption described it, ‘an exacting analysis of the factual evidence in defence of the measure’ [20]) was that the direction was ‘disproportionate’. The judgments (particularly the dissenting one of Lord Reed) tell us a lot about the scope of proportionality. And there is a good deal more to it than there might at first sight appear.”
UK Human Rights Blog, 22nd June 2013
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
“Two sets of judgments today from a 9-judge Supreme Court in the Bank Mellat case. The first explains why the Court adopted a secret procedure in the absence of the Bank (i.e. a Closed Material Procedure) but added that the whole palaver in fact added nothing to their knowledge. The second concludes that financial restrictions imposed in 2009 on an Iranian Bank which effectively excluded it from the UK financial market were arbitrary and irrational and were also procedurally unfair.”
UK Human Rights Blog, 19th June 2013
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
“The government’s enthusiasm for secret courts has been set back after the UK’s most senior judges quashed anti-terrorist sanctions imposed on an Iranian bank and dismissed the intelligence involved as insignificant.”
The Guardian, 19th June 2013
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“The Supreme Court could use secret evidence in a ruling for the first time in a landmark case this week despite previously banning such material from civil courts.”
Daily Telegraph, 18th March 2013
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
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