Scottish Human Rights Law Group

K, an asylum seeker who was a Sierra Leone national sought asylum on the grounds that she was at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) if she returned to Sierra Leone and that removal would prejudice her family life, contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights 1950 art.8 .   Her application that she had submitted fresh claims for asylum was granted on the basis that the secretary of state placed too much weight on the UK Border Agency’s own operation guidance notes on the use of FGM in Sierra Leone, when determining that there was little evidence that FGM was carried out on adults against their will and that an adult could avoid the risk by moving to an area where FGM was not practised; and that too little weight had been placed on the indication within the same notes that such incidents had occurred.   The court determined that K had adduced evidence which set up a case capable of belief that she was at risk, and it was up to the immigration judge to determine on the evidence available whether relocation would allow K to avoid the risk.   The court held that it was not open to the Secretary of State to decide that K  had no realistic prospect of success in her asylum claim, or in her article 8 claim in front of an immigration judge.