MQ (Afghanistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

In an asylum claim, acceptance of an applicant’s account as credible does not itself establish that the feared harm is objectively well founded. The tribunal must evaluate risk by giving appropriate weight to the evidence as a whole. A failure to address a material limb of the protection claim, or to explain how relevant evidence has been weighted, may disclose an arguable error of law. Permission to appeal should be granted where the proposed grounds have a sufficiently realistic prospect of success.

The appellant, an Afghan national, was the son of a militia leader who had been executed after a summary trial for multiple murders. He claimed that he faced risk from persons connected with the faction responsible for his father’s execution and from relatives of his father’s victims.

The first immigration judge accepted the appellant’s account as credible but dismissed the appeal. On reconsideration, the positive credibility findings were preserved, but a single immigration judge again dismissed the appeal, finding no real risk to the appellant’s safety. Permission to appeal was refused on the papers by Scott Baker LJ. The appellant renewed the application before the Court of Appeal, challenging the treatment of the evidence and the tribunal’s failure adequately to address the alleged blood-feud risk.

1. Application granted. The court was concerned with permission to appeal, not the final merits of the protection claim. The proposed appeal had a sufficiently realistic prospect of success.
2. The fact that an applicant’s account is accepted as credible does not determine whether the fear is objectively well founded. The underlying events and the applicant’s subjective fear are matters of fact, but the objective risk arising from them remains a matter of judgment.
3. The reconsidering immigration judge accepted that neighbours had told the appellant that armed men who killed his elder brother were looking for him and his younger brother, but was not persuaded that the men had actually made those enquiries. That conclusion might have been at the margin of what was open to the judge. The court left open the potentially material question of how far an immigration judge must be persuaded of a fact before giving it weight, referring to Karanakaran v SSHD [2000] All ER 3 449.
4. The determination appeared to contain a material lacuna in its treatment of the separate risk that relatives of the father’s victims might seek revenge by way of a blood feud. The judge had treated that risk as highly unlikely largely because the appellant had not previously been targeted and there was no supporting objective evidence. That reasoning arguably failed to engage adequately with the evidence relied upon, including the neighbours’ account.
5. The ultimate assessment could turn on the weight given to different elements of the evidence. Those issues were sufficiently arguable to justify permission. Order: application granted.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — The appellant renewed an application for permission to appeal after Scott Baker LJ had refused permission on the papers. Permission was granted.
2. Asylum and Immigration Tribunal — The first immigration judge dismissed the appeal. On reconsideration, with the positive credibility findings preserved, the single immigration judge again dismissed it.