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

An appellate tribunal reviewing a credibility decision must assess whether an identified error of law was material in the round. An error in some findings does not automatically invalidate the whole determination. The tribunal should weigh the errors against the remaining sustainable adverse findings and ask whether the same outcome would have followed without them.

Where a document’s authenticity is questioned in an asylum or human-rights claim, the issue is its reliability for the purpose advanced, not whether forgery has been proved. The Secretary of State need not prove inauthenticity. A tribunal may give the document little or no weight without deciding whether it is genuine. Even an authentic document must have a demonstrated connection with a risk of persecution or inhuman treatment.

The appellant, an Iranian national, arrived in the United Kingdom aged 16 and was granted exceptional leave to remain as an unaccompanied minor. He later sought an extension on asylum and human-rights grounds, relying on alleged political activity, detention and torture in Iran, and a purported court summons.

An Immigration Judge rejected his account and dismissed the appeal. On reconsideration under the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal Procedure Rules 2005, the Senior Immigration Judge accepted that three credibility findings were unreasonable but held that they were not material in light of eight remaining adverse findings. The appeal concerned the materiality of those errors and the treatment of the summons and expert evidence.

Appeal dismissed. Auld LJ gave the judgment, with which Rix and Gage LJJ agreed.

1. Materiality of credibility errors. Under rule 31, the reconsidering tribunal had to decide whether the Immigration Judge had made a material error of law. Materiality required an assessment in the round. Errors in individual credibility findings did not automatically vitiate the whole determination. The relevant question was whether the surviving adverse findings were sufficiently cogent and whether the same conclusion would have been reached without the errors.
2. The three accepted errors were comparatively trivial. Findings that MS had not suggested needing medical attention after alleged brutality, that his account of leaving Iran was inconsistent, and that it was unlikely he would have been singled out from a crowd were substantially more significant. They, together with other sustainable findings, were more than sufficient to support the adverse credibility conclusion. The Senior Immigration Judge’s conclusion that the errors were immaterial was not perverse.
3. Document reliability. The issue concerning the purported summons was not whether the document was a forgery. It was whether it was reliable for the purpose of the asylum or human-rights claim. The decision-maker could take the general adverse credibility assessment into account when assessing the document. There was no requirement to determine the document issue first; a decision-maker had to start somewhere.
4. Relevance of the summons. The tribunal had to consider what official action the document reliably indicated and whether that action could give rise to a well-founded fear of persecution or inhuman treatment. The approach in Tanveer Ahmed ([2002] UKIAT 00439; [2002] IAR 318), approved in Mungo v The Secretary of State, meant that the Secretary of State did not have to prove that the document was inauthentic. The Immigration Judge was entitled to give the summons and expert evidence little or no weight without deciding whether the summons was genuine. Even if valid, it did not establish a relevant asylum or human-rights risk.
5. The order was that the appeal be dismissed.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): In [2007] EWCA Civ 271, the appeal from the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal was dismissed.
2. Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: An Immigration Judge dismissed the appeal on 30 July 2005. On reconsideration on 11 July 2006, the Senior Immigration Judge accepted that three findings were unreasonable but held that there was no material error of law under rule 31(5) and ordered the original determination to stand.
3. Secretary of State: On 8 June 2005, the Secretary of State refused the application to extend exceptional leave and declined to treat it as a fresh asylum application.