Application for asylum - well founded fear of persecution - internal relocation feasible

Nhengu v Secretary of State for the Home Department: CA (Lords Justice Kennedy, Chadwick and Maurice Kay): 3 March 2004

The applicant, a television and stage actor in Zimbabwe, who was sympathetic to the Movement for Democratic Change, was attacked and injured by youths belonging to the ruling political party.

The local police refused to take any action on the attack.

The applicant fled to another part of Zimbabwe some 450 miles away, and after living there for a while he went to South Africa and eventually arrived in the UK.

His application for a refugee status on the ground of state-sponsored persecution in Zimbabwe was refused.

On his appeal, the adjudicator held that the ill-treatment and any likelihood of its recurrence in his home town did not amount to persecution within the ambit of the Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Human Rights 1951.

On his appeal, the Immigration Appeal Tribunal held that although the past ill-treatment and the likelihood of recurrence in his home town could constitute a well-founded fear of persecution, the applicant could live in Zimbabwe without any fear of persecution by relocating himself to another part of that country, and dismissed his appeal.

The applicant appealed.

Stephen Vokes (instructed by Derby Law Centre) for the applicant; Robin Tam (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the secretary of state.

Held, dismissing the appeal, that a well-founded fear of ill-treatment in the past was not sufficient to establish a well- founded fear of persecution in the future; and that any well founded fear of ill-treatment of the applicant in his home town could not support any suggestion that he could not live without any fear of persecution if he had relocated to a place in Zimbabwe well away from his home town.