S v Secretary of State for the Home Department

In an asylum appeal, medical evidence relevant to credibility must be assessed as an integral part of the credibility evaluation. A decision-maker should not reach adverse credibility findings and then treat corroborative psychiatric or medical evidence as an afterthought. The issue is structural where the reasoning gives the appearance that the medical evidence could not affect the credibility assessment, even though it was later addressed. Permission may be granted where there is an arguable case that this approach caused potentially material evidence to be excluded from the overall assessment.

The appellant, an Ethiopian woman, claimed asylum after arriving in the United Kingdom on a false passport. She alleged that security police had killed her husband, injured her, detained and raped her, and that she had escaped before being abandoned by an agent. An immigration judge rejected her account entirely, addressing a psychiatrist’s report only at paragraph 60 after reaching adverse credibility conclusions.

The AIT refused reconsideration. The central issue was whether the immigration judge’s treatment of the medical evidence arguably amounted to an error of law, and whether the point could be raised for the first time in the Court of Appeal or was a point the AIT should have identified of its own motion.

1. Application allowed. Permission to appeal was granted.
2. The court held that both the direct-appeal argument and the alternative argument that the point was an obvious “Robinson” point were arguable.
3. Medical evidence relevant to credibility should be treated as an integral part of the credibility findings. Artificially separating that evidence from the rest of the evidence, deciding credibility without it, and then concluding that it provides no assistance may constitute a structural failing. [2005] EWCA Civ 357
4. The immigration judge had set out the medical findings before reaching the credibility conclusions, so the evidence was not wholly overlooked. The arguable error was that he failed to explain why it made no difference and structured the decision so that the evidence appeared incapable of affecting credibility.
5. Because the finding that the account was wholly implausible was not obvious, the possible effect of the medical evidence could not be discounted. The court also considered HE (DRC – Credibility and Psychiatric Reports) [2004] UKIAT 00321, which treated such evidence as part of the credibility findings rather than an add-on.

1. Asylum and Immigration Appeal Tribunal: an immigration judge dismissed the asylum appeal in a decision promulgated on 15 August 2005.
2. Asylum and Immigration Appeal Tribunal: reconsideration was refused on 7 September 2005.
3. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): permission to appeal was granted. The substantive appeal was not determined.