Demir v Secretary Of State For Home Department

On an asylum appeal from the Immigration Appeal Tribunal, the Court of Appeal addresses matters of law only. Credibility and risk findings may be upheld where they are supported by evidence and properly reasoned. Detention arising from military-service evasion, peripheral sympathy for an illegal organisation and an absence of later difficulties do not, without more, establish a reasonable likelihood of persecution for a Convention reason. A general possibility of ill-treatment on return is insufficient: the claimant must show a real risk of treatment of the required gravity. Findings are not legally flawed merely because their expression or sequence could have been clearer.

The appellant, a Turkish national of Kurdish origin, claimed asylum on the basis of alleged PKK sympathy, his brother’s death in police custody, previous detentions and a claimed arrest and ill-treatment after attending a rally concerning Abdullah Ocalan. Some earlier detentions were associated with evasion of military service. The special adjudicator rejected the material elements of his account and dismissed the appeal. The Immigration Appeal Tribunal reviewed the evidence and dismissed his appeal. The Tribunal refused permission to appeal, but permission was granted by the Court of Appeal. The central issue was whether the tribunal decisions contained an error of law in finding that the appellant had not established a real risk of persecution or ill-treatment on return to Turkey.

Appeal dismissed unanimously.

1. The appeal was confined to a matter of law. The Court of Appeal was not required to re-evaluate the evidence merely because a different assessment might have been possible.
2. The special adjudicator was entitled to find that the detentions in 1994, if they occurred, were connected with evasion of military service rather than political activity. The appellant’s connection with the PKK was peripheral, and he had experienced no adverse problems with the authorities after completing military service.
3. The reasoning concerning the alleged rally, detention, extension of detention and outstanding case could have been expressed and ordered more clearly. Nevertheless, read as a whole, the adjudicator’s findings were sufficiently clear. The Immigration Appeal Tribunal independently reviewed the evidence and expressly concluded that the alleged arrest and detention had not taken place.
4. The tribunal findings were neither perverse nor improperly reasoned. They supported the conclusion that the appellant had not shown, on the reasonable-likelihood standard, a well-founded fear of persecution for a Convention reason.
5. Although an undocumented returnee might be detained and interrogated, and ill-treatment could not wholly be ruled out where separatist activity was suspected, the evidence did not establish a real risk for this appellant. The tribunal therefore committed no error of law in dismissing the asylum claim.

The order was that the appeal be dismissed.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): dismissed the appeal from the Immigration Appeal Tribunal.
2. Immigration Appeal Tribunal: dismissed the appeal from the special adjudicator and upheld the rejection of the asylum claim.
3. Special adjudicator: dismissed the appellant’s asylum appeal.