The High Court quashed two Refugee Appeals Tribunal decisions rejecting asylum appeals by a Kosovar family, finding that the tribunal had made an error of law in deciding the family could not constitute a particular social group because of an alleged blood feud.
Ms Justice Stewart’s judgment, delivered on 14 January 2015, concerned judicial review proceedings brought by AVB, and by XBG on behalf of herself and her two children. The tribunal had upheld the refusal of their refugee applications in decisions dated 26 and 27 April 2010.
The family said AVB’s brother had killed his brother-in-law in March 2009, allegedly because the victim had forced AVB’s sister to engage in prostitution in Italy. They claimed that the victim’s family threatened AVB and other family members in retaliation. They also said reconciliation had been refused and relatives in Kosovo were living in isolation at home. These were the applicants’ claims, not findings made by the High Court about the underlying events.
The Refugee Appeals Tribunal had concluded that the family did not belong to a particular social group under refugee law. In its reasoning, it treated the dispute as a private matter and relied on the Court of Appeal’s decision in Skenderaj. The applicants argued that this misapplied the House of Lords’ ruling in Fornah, which recognised that a family can be a socially cognisable group. They also relied on a 2012 Upper Tribunal decision concerning Albanian blood feuds.
The judge found that the Upper Tribunal decision was persuasive and correctly interpreted Fornah. She held that the tribunal member had erred in law by finding that a feud among family members lacked the required connection to a Refugee Convention ground. The member had also erred in finding that the family could not constitute a particular social group because of its involvement in the alleged feud.
Because this issue was fundamental to the appeals, the judge said the tribunal decisions were flawed and that adverse findings flowing from the error could not stand. She granted leave and ordered certiorari quashing both decisions. The matters were remitted to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal for determination by a different member or members.
The judgment did not decide whether the family’s account of the alleged feud was true, whether they qualified for refugee status, or whether the other disputed issues—including credibility, state protection, internal relocation and the absence of an oral hearing for XBG and the children—should be resolved in their favour. Those matters remained for reconsideration.