Case No. UKUT-00627(IAC)

[2013] EWHC 3879 (Admin), Phillips J had concluded that criminal deportees would be at risk on return to the DRC and had done so after a comprehensive assessment of the evidence before him; (2) that Phillips J found that the evidence before him made clear that criminal deportees would be interrogated upon arrival and it would come to light that they had criminal convictions which would in turn lead on to ill treatment; (3) the SSHD had not appealed against Phillips J’s judgment; (4) the further evidence available (which included the February 2014 Home Office DRC Policy Bulletin 1/2014), although not identifying that there had been any problems for returned deportees known to have criminal convictions outside the DRC, continued to show that there was a real risk to such persons in practice; (5) there was no evidence that the statements made by the Congolese Ambassador to the UK in his letter to Mary Glindon MP in August 2013 had been withdrawn and they disclosed there would be a real risk on return for Foreign National Offenders ( FNOs). 3. In her written grounds of appeal the SSHD maintained that the judge had incorrectly interpreted the case of P and the February 2014 Bulletin. In relation to the judge’s purported reliance on P , he failed to note that it was a judicial review decision about whether P’s further representations could be accepted as a fresh claim, not a decision on the merits and that it should have been known to the judge that the Upper Tribunal had a pending country guidance case to seek to resolve the issues raised by P . 4. In relation to the February 2014 Bulletin, it was argued that the judge was wrong to place excessive or determinative weight on the fact that none of the countries that had replied to the questionnaire monitored returnees at the airport. 5. In the claimant’s Rule 24 Response the point is made that even though P was not country guidance that did not prevent the judge from attaching weight to its findings and the judge had in any event evaluated the further evidence to hand. The fact that there was pending country guidance did not disqualify the judge from proceeding to decide the appeal on the evidence before him. As regards the judge’s treatment of the February 2014 Bulletin, the quote at paragraph 4.13 which the SSHD herself set out in her grounds of appeal (“With regards to returnees with criminal records and/or outstanding warrants of arrest, if the authorities are aware that the person is returning they will be detained”) demonstrated that the Bulletin was not at variance with the judge’s assessment. 6. In written submissions produced for the hearing Mr Melvin relied on the original grounds and drew attention to the fact that the Upper Tribunal had now promulgated country guidance on this issue in