Daoud v Secretary of State for the Home Department

An asylum adjudicator may accept evidence on one factual issue, such as ethnic identity, while rejecting the claimant’s account of past persecution. Those findings can coexist, because rejection of a personal history does not logically preclude a finding of future risk based on accepted ethnicity. Differential credibility findings should ordinarily be explained expressly, but remittal is unnecessary where the reasoning is implicit yet intelligible when the decision is read as a whole. Internal relocation is a serious issue requiring proper notice, evidence and argument. It is not a fallback submission that can be advanced without a proper evidential and legal foundation.

The adjudicator rejected the appellant’s account of his own and his family’s past persecution, but accepted that he was a member of the Massaleit tribe. On the objective evidence, the adjudicator found a real future risk of persecution in western Darfur and allowed both the asylum and human rights appeals. The adjudicator also found that internal relocation had not properly been raised and would not be safe or reasonable.

The Immigration Appeal Tribunal treated the adjudicator’s reasoning as an error of law, holding that the ethnic finding was inadequately explained and could not coexist with the adverse credibility findings. The appeal concerned whether those findings were legally incompatible and whether internal relocation was a properly available issue.

1. Appeal allowed. Lord Justice Sedley delivered the judgment, with Lord Justices Rix and Clarke agreeing. The adjudicator’s decision was restored, with costs on the standard basis.
2. The Immigration Appeal Tribunal correctly identified an apparent gap between the adjudicator’s evidential discussion and his acceptance of the appellant’s ethnicity. It nevertheless made its own error of law by treating the rejection of the appellant’s account of past persecution as logically incompatible with acceptance of his ethnic identity.
3. Credibility is assessed item by item. An adjudicator may accept evidence on one factual issue and reject evidence on another. A false account of past persecution based on ethnicity does not prevent the claimant from facing future persecution because of that ethnicity.
4. An adjudicator who makes differential credibility findings should ordinarily explain what evidence is accepted and rejected. However, the reasons may be implicit. Read as a whole, the decision adequately conveyed that the adjudicator accepted the appellant’s explanation concerning the interview record and separately rejected his account of past events. Remittal would therefore achieve nothing.
5. Internal relocation was not a valid fallback submission in the circumstances. It is a serious and frequently problematical issue requiring proper notice, evidence and argument, and it is governed by legal tests. The adjudicator was entitled to treat it as not properly arising where the issue had not been raised by the respondent and there was no evidence that relocation would be safe or reasonable.
6. Under sections 101 and 103 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, the statutory appellate jurisdiction was confined to points of law.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Allowed the appellant’s appeal and restored the adjudicator’s decision.
• Immigration Appeal Tribunal: Treated the adjudicator’s acceptance of the appellant’s ethnic identity as an error of law and did not determine internal relocation after rejecting the claim of a well-founded fear of persecution.
• Adjudicator: Rejected the appellant’s account of past persecution but accepted his Massaleit ethnicity, found a future risk of persecution in western Darfur, and allowed the asylum and human rights appeals.