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

In an asylum appeal, credibility is primarily for the tribunal. The appellate court must consider the tribunal’s decision as a whole. Criticism of individual reasons will not establish an error of law where those reasons are peripheral and the central credibility assessment is adequately reasoned. A tribunal may reject an account despite imperfections in some aspects of its reasoning if its principal conclusion is supported by the overall evidence. The appellate court should not substitute its own assessment of credibility for that of the tribunal.

The appellant claimed asylum after arriving from Iran. He alleged that he had been beaten during military service for refusing to shoot an elderly man and that he later faced persecution after attempting to elope with the wife of a local preacher.

Following several earlier procedural stages, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal made a fresh determination on 4 June 2008 and dismissed his appeal, finding his accounts incredible. The appellant sought permission to appeal, criticising the tribunal’s treatment of the evidence, including translation issues, arrest warrants, his period living openly in Iran, and the risk allegedly arising from adultery. The central issue was whether those criticisms disclosed an error of law.

1. The application for permission to appeal was refused. The Court of Appeal found no realistic prospect that the tribunal’s determination would be shown to contain an error of law.
2. Credibility was entirely a matter for the tribunal. The reviewing court had to assess the tribunal’s overall reasoning rather than isolate and re-evaluate every individual reason.
3. The tribunal’s principal reason for rejecting the account was that the appellant had lived openly in Kerman as a taxi driver for four years. In the tribunal’s view, that conduct was inconsistent with a genuine risk of persecution arising from the alleged military incident. The court regarded that as the central concern in the determination.
4. Criticisms concerning the absence of arrest warrants, the alleged lack of a political motive for disobedience, the appellant’s failure to claim asylum in Turkey or Greece, and comparisons between statements originally written in Farsi were peripheral to the central credibility assessment. Some criticisms might have had force, but they did not undermine the tribunal’s overall conclusion.
5. The tribunal had also considered whether the appellant would face persecution if returned as an adulterer. The court treated the criticism of that aspect of the decision in the same way: it did not displace the tribunal’s central finding that the account was incredible.

Order: Application refused.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): permission to appeal from the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal’s determination was refused: [2008] EWCA Civ 1019.
• Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: on 4 June 2008, the tribunal dismissed the appellant’s appeal after finding his accounts incredible.
• Earlier proceedings: an adjudicator dismissed the appeal on 2 May 2002. Lightman J later quashed the refusal of permission to appeal, leading to reconsideration. A further determination was set aside by order of the Court of Appeal on 5 December 2006, after which the fresh determination was made.