JV (Tanzania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

Denial of nationality can amount to persecution under the Refugee Convention only where it is actuated by a Convention reason. A mistaken interpretation of citizenship legislation, without a Convention-based motive, does not satisfy that requirement. On an appeal from an immigration tribunal limited to legal error, the Court of Appeal must read the determination as a whole and must not rehear the factual merits. The perversity threshold is formidable: a tenuous evidential basis is insufficient. The duty of anxious scrutiny does not change that threshold. Findings that there is no risk on return will stand where supported by evidence and not shown to be irrational.

This was an appeal against the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal’s determination of 23 October 2006, which dismissed an appeal against refusal of an asylum claim. The appellant asserted that Tanzania had rendered him stateless by refusing to recognise his Tanzanian citizenship. He argued that the refusal amounted to persecution and that return exposed him to risks under the Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case had previously been remitted after the AIT found an adjudicator’s decision legally flawed. On rehearing, the AIT accepted that the Tanzanian authorities had misinterpreted citizenship legislation but found no wilful or Convention-based denial, no detention as claimed, no risk on return, and credibility concerns under section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration Treatment of Claimants (Etc) Act 2004. The central issue was whether those findings disclosed perversity or another error of law.

Appeal dismissed. Laws LJ gave the judgment, with Mummery and Lloyd LJJ agreeing.

1. Nationality and persecution. The court accepted the principle stated in Lazarevic, [1997] 1 WLR 1107, that deprivation of nationality can amount to persecution only where the denial is actuated by a Convention reason, including matters specified in Article 18 (2) of the Refugee Convention. The AIT had found that the Tanzanian authorities had misinterpreted the relevant provisions of the Tanzanian Citizenship Act, rather than wilfully denying nationality for a Convention reason. That finding was not properly challenged and defeated the persecution argument.
2. Appellate review. The appellant’s grounds sought to characterise disagreements with factual findings as perversity. The AIT’s determination had to be read as a whole. The Court of Appeal’s statutory function was to identify legal error, not to substitute its own factual assessment or usurp the AIT’s authority. Perversity means what it says: a finding cannot be overturned merely because its evidential basis is tenuous rather than nonexistent. The authority of Miftari, [2005] EWCA Civ 481, was applied. Anxious scrutiny does not alter that threshold.
3. Application to the evidence. The AIT was entitled to rely on inconsistencies in the appellant’s account of detention and on the evidence concerning assistance available from the Legal and Human Rights Centre. The challenges concerning detention, deportation, nationality on return and Article 3 were attempts to rerun the factual merits. The AIT’s conclusions were supported by evidence, and any factual error concerning a brother lacked substantial materiality. The reliance on section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration Treatment of Claimants (Etc) Act 2004 was also unchallenged.

Order: appeal dismissed.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): On 7 November 2007, dismissed the appeal against the AIT’s determination.
• Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: The AIT found the adjudicator’s earlier decision flawed by an error of law on 2 May 2006 and remitted the case for rehearing. After rehearing on 17 October 2006, it dismissed the appeal in its determination dated 23 October 2006.
• Adjudicator: On 6 June 2005, dismissed the appellant’s appeal on asylum and human-rights grounds.