Akinfolarin v Secretary Of State For Home Department

On a renewed application for permission to appeal in an asylum case, it is arguable that an appellate tribunal must give adequate reasons for rejecting objective country evidence which is relied on as materially undermining the first-instance conclusions. A bare statement that the material touches on none of those conclusions may be insufficient where the evidence appears capable of bearing on the risk of persecution. Permission does not require the court to conclude that the tribunal’s factual assessment was necessarily irrational or that the appeal must succeed.

The applicant, a Nigerian citizen, appealed against the refusal of his asylum claim. The adjudicator rejected his account of past detention and concluded that his political activities and links with the Oduduwa Movement and the Oodua Peoples Congress were unlikely to expose him to persecution on return.

The Immigration Appeal Tribunal upheld that conclusion. It acknowledged that extensive objective materials had been before the adjudicator, but stated that they contained nothing touching on the adjudicator’s general points and conclusions. The applicant renewed his application for permission to appeal, alleging inadequate reasoning in the Tribunal’s treatment of the evidence.

1. Permission granted. The court did not decide that the applicant’s appeal must succeed, or that a rational tribunal was bound to allow it. The question was whether an arguable error of law had been shown.

2. The applicant relied on substantial objective material concerning the treatment of members of the Oodua Peoples Congress in Nigeria. The material included reports alleging killings, detention, brutalisation and the use of deadly force by state agencies. It was therefore arguable that the material was relevant to the assessment of the risk faced by the applicant on return.

3. The Immigration Appeal Tribunal had said that it had examined the materials but found nothing touching on the adjudicator’s general points and conclusions. Lord Justice Laws considered it arguable that the Tribunal was required to offer more reasoning than that bare statement. An appellate tribunal must explain, at least sufficiently, why apparently material evidence does not affect the conclusions under challenge.

4. The court distinguished the permission question from the merits. The grant of permission did not express a view that the applicant’s factual account was credible, that the objective evidence established a real risk of persecution, or that the Tribunal’s ultimate conclusion was irrational.

Application for permission to appeal granted.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Permission to appeal had initially been refused on the papers, but the renewed application was granted because it was arguable that the Immigration Appeal Tribunal had given inadequate reasons for rejecting the significance of the objective evidence.
• Immigration Appeal Tribunal: Appeal dismissed; the Tribunal agreed that the applicant was unlikely to suffer persecution in Nigeria and found that the objective materials did not affect the adjudicator’s conclusions.
• Adjudicator: Appeal against the Secretary of State’s refusal of asylum dismissed.