HJ (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

An asylum tribunal must address each potentially material foundational event in a claimant’s account and give reasons for accepting or rejecting it. A generic finding that the central account lacks credibility does not cure a failure to decide whether the alleged triggering event occurred. The omission is material where acceptance of that event could affect the assessment of later events and the risk on return. The appeal should then be allowed and the case remitted for a complete rehearing before a fresh panel. The appellate court should not indicate what findings the new tribunal should make.

An Iranian national appealed against an Asylum and Immigration Tribunal determination dated 28 February 2006, made on statutory reconsideration, which dismissed his asylum and human-rights claims. He alleged that he had disobeyed an order to kill a civilian, had consequently been detained and ill-treated, and later had an adulterous relationship with the wife of a Mufti. The central issue was whether the AIT had lawfully assessed his credibility and given adequate reasons, in particular whether it had addressed the alleged disobedience that initiated the claimed persecution.

1. Appeal allowed. Laws LJ, with Sedley LJ and Sir Igor Judge agreeing, held that the AIT’s determination was legally defective because it did not expressly decide whether the appellant had disobeyed his officer’s order to kill a civilian, nor explain why that part of his account was accepted or rejected (paras 7–8, 21).
2. The alleged disobedience was a potentially important triggering event. A finding on it could materially affect the tribunal’s assessment of the subsequent interrogation, detention, hospitalisation and escape, and could affect the risk on return. The omission could not be repaired by inferring a finding from the AIT’s discussion of later events or from the reason given for granting permission to appeal. The generic rejection of the central core of the account failed to grapple with the intrinsic and extrinsic credibility of the triggering episode (paras 7–8, 21, 23).
3. The court considered the remaining challenges. Some criticism of the AIT’s reasoning had force, including its treatment of how the appellant’s father learned of the hospitalisation. Other reasons, including the alleged bribery of hospital staff, the appellant’s four-year relocation while working as a taxi driver, and the circumstances of the relationship with the Mufti’s wife, could have been legally sufficient if standing alone. They nevertheless could not save a determination infected by the foundational omission (paras 9–20).
4. The case was remitted in its entirety for rehearing before a freshly constituted panel. The fresh panel was required to assess the evidence and credibility for itself. Nothing in the Court of Appeal’s judgments was to be treated as indicating the findings that should be made (paras 22, 24–26).

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): On 5 December 2006, allowed the appeal from the AIT’s determination dated 28 February 2006 and remitted the case in its entirety for rehearing before a fresh panel.
• Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: On statutory reconsideration, dismissed the asylum and human-rights appeal in the matter recorded as [AIT No. HX/04520/2002].
• Earlier proceedings: An adjudicator dismissed the appeal on 10 May 2002. The Immigration Appeal Tribunal refused permission to appeal, but that refusal was quashed in the Administrative Court on 23 June 2003. The AIT later ordered reconsideration and, on 13 October 2005, found the adjudicator’s original findings vitiated by error of law.