NCADC Campaigning Toolkit
Further submissions can be given to UKBA at any point after an asylum claim or human rights application is refused, but a fresh claim can only be made when appeal rights are exhausted. You may hear further submissions referred to as ‘further representations’ or ‘further evidence’. In this Toolkit, the phrase ‘further submissions’ will be used, as this is the language UKBA will use in any letters to you.
Further submissions might include emphasising a point already made, but to be considered as a fresh claim they must include new information.
A helpful way to think about a fresh claim is that it will either need to provide evidence of a new fact, or provide a new source of evidence for a fact that has previously been disputed.
You or your lawyer give UKBA the further submissions (new evidence/documentation), UKBA decides if it’s a fresh claim.
From the Immigration Rules:
353. When a human rights or asylum claim has been refused or withdrawn or treated as withdrawn under paragraph 333C of these Rules and any appeal relating to that claim is no longer pending, the decision maker will consider any further submissions and, if rejected, will then determine whether they amount to a fresh claim. The submissions will amount to a fresh claim if they are significantly different from the material that has previously been considered. The submissions will only be significantly different if the content:
(i) had not already been considered; and
(ii) taken together with the previously considered material, created a realistic prospect of success, notwithstanding its rejection.
The key points are:
1) significantly different from the material that has previously been considered. If it’s material that hasn’t been considered before, why hasn’t it been considered? If you’ve had access to the evidence all along and haven’t submitted it without a good reason, UKBA will use that a reason to reject it. It’s not just arguing your case in a better way – there has to be material that is new to back up your arguments. And
2) a realistic prospect of success: You may have new evidence, but is it relevant to your situation? Is it material (central) to your case? There may have been a big political change in your home country, but if your claim is based on sexuality for example, and the political change can’t be seen to impact on that, it won’t be considered a fresh claim.
UKBA will consider whether the evidence that has been submitted can be trusted.
If they or the courts have in the past made ‘negative credibility findings’ – saying they do not believe your story or think you have submitted false documents for example – they may use this to discount new evidence you have submitted. In these situations, objective evidence becomes even more important.
Here is what a letter rejecting your further submissions might say about credibility: ‘It is considered that the documents you have submitted do not address these issues and do not explain away the inconsistencies and implausibilities in your evidence.’
Credibility has other implications. If, for example, you have new evidence about the persecution of Elai subclan in Somalia, this will not be considered to have a realistic prospect of success, no matter how good the evidence, if it is not believed that you a member of that subclan. You would need to also provide evidence showing that UKBA and the courts were wrong to doubt your clan identity.
A common example is political persecution in countries such as Iran and Zimbabwe. Political oppression in these countries is well known and is accepted to occur by UKBA, and you may find many news reports and human rights reports confirming this is occurring and so submit this as a fresh claim. But, unless you can show that you are from these countries, a political activist, and high profile (at least at the level of the activists mentioned in the reports), it is likely that UKBA will reject the fresh claim. Further submissions may include good evidence from reputable sources about human rights abuses and persecution, and UKBA/the courts may not dispute that this evidence is true. The problem can be that UKBA do not believe these problems or events are relevant to you.
