Ekinci v Secretary of State for the Home Department

In assessing documentary evidence in an asylum appeal, the question is whether the documents are reliable, wherever and however they were produced. A document may be genuine in its material and origin yet unreliable if manufactured to order, including by a corrupt official using official paper, materials and stamps. An expert translator’s expertise does not establish the reliability of documents outside that expertise. A possibility that another fact-finder might reach a different view of the same evidence does not, without an error of law, justify appellate intervention. Speculative findings do not necessarily vitiate a decision where the remaining evidence-based reasons independently and adequately support the adverse credibility findings.

The appellant, a Turkish Kurd and admitted draft evader, claimed that he faced arrest and ill-treatment on return because of support for the PKK. An adjudicator disbelieved his account, rejected two supporting documents as unreliable, and found that he faced only the non-Convention risk of arrest and imprisonment as a draft evader.

The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal upheld that decision, accepting that some findings were speculative but concluding that the remaining reasons adequately supported the credibility and factual findings. Permission to appeal was refused on the papers, and the appellant renewed the application before the Court of Appeal. The central issue was whether the adjudicator or the Tribunal had made a material error of law.

1. Application refused. The Court of Appeal held that there was no realistic possibility of identifying an error of law which undermined the adjudicator’s decision or the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal’s approach to it.
2. The adjudicator had applied the correct approach to the documents. Following the teaching in Tanveer Ahmed, the relevant question was whether the documents were reliable, wherever and however they had been produced. Their apparent official character did not determine that question. Documents could be genuine as to their material and origin yet unreliable because they had been manufactured to order. The expertise of the translator and Turkish specialist did not extend to specialist document examination.
3. The possibility that another adjudicator might have reached a different conclusion on the same evidence was immaterial. A fact-finding disagreement does not become an appealable error of law merely because an alternative assessment was available.
4. The Tribunal had identified that some of the adjudicator’s assumptions were speculative. It nevertheless considered the remainder of the reasoning and was satisfied that the evidence-based grounds of disbelief independently provided an adequate legal foundation for the adverse credibility assessment and findings of fact. That analysis disclosed no separate error of law or approach.
5. The court acknowledged the concern surrounding the return of dissident Kurds to Turkey, but remained bound to accept the specialist tribunals’ appraisal because no legally relevant error had been shown. The application was refused, with a public funding assessment for the appellant.

• Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: upheld the adjudicator’s decision and found no material error of law.
• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): refused the renewed application for permission to appeal.