United Kingdom: House of Lords (Judicial Committee)
The House of Lords is the United Kingdom's supreme court of appeal. Its decisions are final for civil cases in all United Kingdom courts; and for criminal cases in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Since October 2009, the jurisdiction of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords was assumed by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. Website: www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld/ldjudinf.htm
The case summary in English has been prepared in the framework of the Knowledge-Based Harmonisation of European Asylum Practices Project (2010-2012), co-financed by the European Refugee Fund.
On appeal from [2002] EWCA Civ 1403.
The Convention relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 (United Nations) Art.1C(5) and the proviso to it could not be relied on before it had been determined whether an asylum seeker was entitled to refugee status under Art.1A(2), and in any event the proviso only applied to "statutory refugees" under Art.1A(1) to which it expressly referred and there was no general practice of states to apply the proviso to all refugees.