The Home Office lately withdrew all of its Country Policy and Information Notes (CPINs) on Albania for evaluate. On 20 September 2022 the CPINs reappeared on the Home Office web site, with two CPINs – on blood feuds and trafficking – having been up to date.
Having beforehand reviewed and critiqued the October 2018 and February 2020 variations of the blood feuds CPIN, I used to be unsurprised to see that the brand new September 2022 model suffers from many of the identical flaws. Unlike its predecessors, the September 2022 model argues explicitly that there are “very strong grounds supported by cogent evidence” to justify departing from the Country Guidance case of EH (blood feuds) Albania CG [2012] UKUT 348 (IAC), and that there’s now a common sufficiency of safety in opposition to blood feuds in Albania. Concerningly, it argues on this foundation that asylum claims primarily based on blood feuds can correctly be licensed as “clearly unfounded” underneath part 94 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002.
In my new paper published this week (additionally accessible as a downloadable PDF here) I evaluate the brand new CPIN intimately. I argue that it fails to offer a adequate foundation for departing from EH. Even if the Home Office thinks departure from EH is merited, it can not correctly certify these claims as “clearly unfounded”. I additionally evaluate the problem of inner relocation, wherein the CPIN’s coverage abstract fails correctly to mirror the sources cited within the CPIN itself. In my…
