AJ (Cameroon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

Medical evidence relevant to an asylum claimant’s credibility must be assessed as part of the evidence as a whole. A tribunal must not first make an adverse credibility finding and then treat the medical report as a separate possible qualification. However, medical evidence does not displace the tribunal’s fact-finding role or require it to devise an alternative account of how injuries were sustained after rejecting the claimant’s account.

An appellate challenge on a point of law cannot be used to re-argue factual findings. A tribunal need not address every item of evidence, provided that its reasons, read fairly and as a whole, adequately explain its conclusion.

The appellant, a Cameroonian national, appealed against the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal’s determination of 19 July 2006. The Tribunal had dismissed his appeal against the refusal of asylum and removal directions. It rejected his account of work for Auto Defence and of detention and torture, notwithstanding a medical report identifying numerous scars and supporting an account of severe violence.

The proceedings had previously been remitted twice after concerns about the treatment of the medical evidence. The central issues were whether the Tribunal had lawfully assessed that evidence, adequately explained its rejection of the claimed cause of the scars, and made legal rather than merely factual errors in its credibility assessment.

1. Appeal dismissed. Laws LJ, with whom Scott Baker LJ and Sir Igor Judge P agreed, held that the Tribunal had made no error of law.

2. The principle in [2005] EWCA Civ 367 required evidence relevant to credibility, including medical evidence, to be assessed as part of the whole evidential picture. The Tribunal had done so. It had considered Dr Forrest’s detailed findings alongside the appellant’s differing accounts of the alleged detentions and injuries. The doctor’s role did not extend to determining credibility.

3. The Tribunal accepted that the appellant had suffered violence, but rejected his account that the scars had been inflicted in the asserted torture and persecution. It was not required to make positive findings about some different cause of the injuries. The burden rested on the appellant, and an alternative account would have been speculative.

4. The Tribunal’s reasons were sufficient. Its determination identified material discrepancies, considered the objective material, and made its conclusion intelligible to the unsuccessful appellant. The medical evidence did not make acceptance of the appellant’s case the only reasonable factual conclusion.

5. The remaining complaints challenged detailed factual findings. A fact-finder need not deal expressly with every item of evidence or every point. Reasons may properly concentrate on the matters that moved the decision. The court’s jurisdiction was confined to errors of law and could not be used to reopen the merits. The appeal was dismissed with detailed assessment of the appellant’s costs.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Dismissed the appeal from the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal for want of an error of law.
• Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: On 19 July 2006, dismissed the appellant’s asylum appeal following a further rehearing.
• Court of Appeal: On 31 March 2006, by consent, allowed an earlier appeal and remitted the matter to the Tribunal for a further rehearing.
• Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: An immigration judge dismissed the reconsideration on 17 May 2005.
• Immigration Appeal Tribunal: On 4 March 2005, allowed the appeal to the extent of ordering a remittal to another adjudicator because the treatment of the medical report was arguably flawed.
• Adjudicator: Dismissed the asylum appeal on 24 March 2004.