ABSTRACT
Hence, the key relevant elements of the test are a well-founded fear of persecution, and that the persecution feared must be on relevant grounds. Miss Shia may try to argue that she has a well-founded fear of persecution, either on a personal level due to any acts from which she had already suffered before she left Entriastan, or as a member of a ‘particular social group’. In relation to the former, she is unlikely to succeed, particularly if Entriastan is now a violent country where human rights violations are likely to occur: see Ward v Secretary of State for the Home Department (1997), where an individual’s torture was found to be ‘nothing more than the sort of random difficulties faced by many thousands of people in Peru’. Further, ‘solitary individuals do not exhibit cohesiveness, co-operation or interdependence’, which were seen to be the requirements for a social group by Lord Justice Staughton in Islam (1998). But the fact that the threats which she suffered came from anti-abortion fundamentalists is not in itself a problem, since the persecution need not come from a State source: R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex p Bouheraoua and Kerkeb (2000); the Convention provides protection from persecution by non-State agents, but only if the authorities of the State in question are unwilling or unable to give effective protection (see Horvath v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2001)). Thus, Miss Shia has an arguable claim of fear of persecution if she can show that Entriastan fails to offer her a reasonable level of protection. She may argue that she is a ‘member of a particular social group’ and fears persecution on that basis.
