Mwaura & Ors v Secretary Of State For the Home Department

In an immigration appeal, credibility, factual assessment, country evidence and evaluation of risk are primarily matters for the adjudicator and the Immigration Appeal Tribunal. The Court of Appeal should not interfere unless their approach discloses an error of law. Where expert evidence has been specifically addressed, disagreement with its evaluation does not establish such an error. Article 8 may have no significant role where the circumstances, including the need to maintain immigration control, provide no substantial human-rights issue. The court dismissed the renewed application for permission to appeal.

Kenyan applicants challenged the dismissal of their asylum appeals. A special adjudicator dismissed the family unit’s appeal after rejecting or substantially discounting the evidence concerning political activity, past detention and future risk. The Immigration Appeal Tribunal identified some shortcomings in the credibility assessment but upheld the essential conclusions, finding only a remote risk on return and that the children could return with their parents.

The applicants renewed their application for permission to appeal, alleging that the Tribunal had failed to engage properly with expert evidence about Kenya and had wrongly treated Article 8 as irrelevant.

The renewed application for permission to appeal was dismissed.

1. Assessment of evidence and risk. Kennedy LJ held that the special adjudicator and the Immigration Appeal Tribunal had specifically addressed the expert evidence. The Tribunal was entitled to undertake the fact-finding exercise of identifying, on the evidence, where risk lay and evaluating its extent. The issues were matters of factual assessment and assessment of the implications of the facts. No error of law appeared in the Tribunal’s approach.
2. Appellate restraint. Buxton LJ agreed with the leading judgment. He emphasised that the relevant issues were matters uniquely for the adjudicator and the Immigration Appeal Tribunal, and that neither tribunal had committed, or come close to committing, an error of law.
3. Article 8. Kennedy LJ considered that Article 8 had no significant part to play in the circumstances, having regard to the need for the United Kingdom to exercise immigration control. The Immigration Appeal Tribunal was therefore entitled to treat the Article 8 issue as insignificant.
4. Order. The application was dismissed.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): renewed application for permission to appeal dismissed, [2002] EWCA Civ 1664.
• Immigration Appeal Tribunal: appeals heard on 13 March 2002 and dismissed by decision notified on 7 June 2002.
• Special adjudicator: appeal by the family unit dismissed by decision dated 9 November 2001.