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The claimant asylum seeker (N) applied for judicial review of a decision of the defendant secretary of state to refuse to treat further representations by him as constituting a fresh asylum or human rights claim. N, a citizen of Pakistan, had claimed asylum upon his arrival in the United Kingdom. N’s claim was based upon his assertion that he faced persecution because of his Ahmadiyya Muslim faith. N asserted that he had been subject to violence because of his religious activities and that a first instance report had been compiled by the Pakistani police recording a complaint to it of N preaching the Ahmadiyya faith. A decision by the secretary of state to refuse N’s claim was upheld by an immigration judge, who found that N’s account of events in Pakistan was incredible and contained contradictions and embellishments. The judge further found that no such first instance report had been produced to support N’s claim. N made further representations to the secretary of state that he claimed constituted a fresh asylum or human rights claim. N relied upon a letter from a religious association confirming that N was a practising Ahmadiyya Muslim in Pakistan, and on a new first instance report. The report, which dated from after N’s arrival in the UK, stated that N had distributed material relating to the Ahmadiyya faith and had preached in public. The secretary of state refused to treat the further representations as constituting a fresh claim. The secretary of state held that, having regard to the Immigration Rules r.353 and to the findings of the immigration judge, the documents had not produced a situation in which N’s claim would have a realistic prospect of succeeding if it was put before an immigration judge, as the letter from the association did no more than confirm that N was a practising Ahmadiyya Muslim, and as the first instance report was unreliable in that it was dated a year after N had arrived in the UK and such documents could easily be obtained in Pakistan. Application refused.
