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

In asylum and human-rights claims, tribunals need not recite familiar authorities as a formula. The question is whether they addressed the correct issue: whether return would create a real risk of persecution or treatment contrary to article 3. Evidence has no probabilistic cut-off. Each item must receive the weight it deserves, and primary facts may be found with different degrees of confidence. The tribunal must then assemble those findings into a comprehensive, case-specific risk assessment. For a single Christian-convert woman, family, social and economic protection may be an additional risk factor, but no fixed level of support is required. A coherent and tenable assessment is not invalidated by variations in expression.

The appellant was an Iranian woman who claimed asylum after arriving in the United Kingdom in January 2004. She said that her conversion to Christianity exposed her to persecution and treatment contrary to article 3 on return, particularly because she was single and lacked adequate family and economic support. An adjudicator dismissed her appeal in May 2004, the IAT remitted it, and a further appeal failed in October 2005. Following permission to appeal and a consent remittal, the AIT dismissed the claim again in September 2006. The appeal concerned whether the AIT had adopted an incorrect mode of proof and whether it had properly evaluated the cumulative risk facing a single Christian convert on return.

Appeal dismissed. Sedley LJ gave the principal judgment. Hughes LJ and Auld LJ agreed.

1. The AIT was not required to recite authorities such as Sivakumaran and Kaja as a formula. The relevant question was whether it had asked whether return would create a real risk of persecution or treatment contrary to article 3.
2. Following the approach in Karanakaran [2000] 3 AllER 449, there was no probabilistic cut-off for evidence capable of bearing on the outcome. The tribunal could discard evidence it considered worthless, give the remaining evidence its proper weight, and make primary findings with differing degrees of certainty. The ultimate risk question arose only after the findings had been assembled.
3. The required exercise was a comprehensive appraisal of the appellant’s individual circumstances. It had to combine the country evidence concerning ordinary Christian converts, the appellant’s likely conduct and exposure, her vulnerability as a single woman, and the availability of family, social and economic protection. The guidance in FS et al (Iran: Christian converts) Iran CG [2004] UKIAT 00303 recognised that additional risk factors could turn an otherwise insufficient risk into a real risk.
4. The AIT’s differing descriptions of the likelihood of parental economic support were unfortunate but not legally decisive. There was no predetermined level of support required. The necessary level had to be assessed case by case, having regard to the support likely to be needed and the appellant’s own skills and experience. The AIT was entitled to find that potential family and social support, together with her ability to obtain employment, kept the risk below the threshold.
5. It was not improper to use an earlier adverse credibility finding about past events when assessing the appellant’s later evidence about her relatives’ likely reaction, although such credibility assessments carry a risk of error. The AIT had reached a tenable overall conclusion that the appellant faced discrimination but no real risk of persecution or article 3 treatment.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — [2007] EWCA Civ 460: dismissed the appeal. Hughes LJ and Auld LJ agreed with Sedley LJ.
• Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: on the remitted hearing in September 2006, dismissed the appellant’s claim. Earlier decisions had also dismissed the claim, with remittals by the IAT and by consent following permission to appeal.