Gomez-Salinas v Immigration Appeal Tribunal

Permission to appeal in an asylum case should be refused where the adjudicator has conducted a careful and comprehensive assessment of credibility and the evidence as a whole discloses no arguable error of law. An adjudicator is not required separately to investigate or analyse the provenance or status of documentary evidence unless the documents were treated, or ought properly to have been treated, as a central plank of the adverse credibility finding. A perceived risk of confusion between family members does not justify intervention where the adjudication clearly distinguishes their identities and reasoning.

The applicant, a Colombian national, sought permission to appeal and an extension of time against Sullivan J’s refusal of permission to apply for judicial review. The judicial review challenge concerned the Immigration Appeal Tribunal’s refusal of permission to appeal from a Special Adjudicator’s dismissal of asylum and leave-to-enter appeals brought by the applicant and two family members.

The applicant alleged that the Special Adjudicator had confused one brother with another and had failed properly to investigate UP membership cards produced by the appellants. The central issues were whether those matters disclosed an arguable error requiring judicial review.

1. Application refused. The extension of time would have been granted if the substantive challenge had had merit, but no arguable case was shown.
2. The Special Adjudicator’s adjudication was careful and detailed. Its references to the second appellant and to the brother known as JJ were sufficiently clear. There was no real possibility that the adjudicator had confused their identities. Although any genuine confusion could potentially affect related credibility findings, the reasoning disclosed no such confusion.
3. The Special Adjudicator was entitled to assess credibility on the evidence as a whole. She had not found that the UP membership cards were forgeries, but had concluded that the appellants’ account was not credible and that they were not established to be UP members.
4. Further investigation of the provenance of the cards, or specific analysis of their status, was not required in the circumstances. The case was materially different from R v Immigration Appeal Tribunal ex parte Shen [2000] INLR 389, where the documents were, or should have been, treated as a central plank of the adverse decision.
5. The application for permission to appeal was therefore refused.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): permission to appeal and an extension of time were sought and permission was refused.
• High Court of Justice: Sullivan J refused permission to apply for judicial review on 25 April 2001.
• Immigration Appeal Tribunal: refused permission to appeal from the Special Adjudicator’s decision.
• Special Adjudicator: dismissed the appeals against refusal of leave to enter and asylum.