LJ (Albania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

An immigration judge must give adequate reasons for credibility findings, addressing matters specifically relied on by the opposing party. On an appeal alleging irrationality, the appellate court asks whether the challenged conclusion was one the judge was entitled to reach. An error in evaluating part of the evidence will not justify intervention where the court is confident that the outcome would have been the same without it. Where a claim has already been rejected for clear and powerful reasons, the decision-maker need not examine supporting documents in extensive detail, particularly where their timing casts doubt on their authenticity.

The appellant, an Albanian national, appealed against the dismissal on reconsideration of his asylum, humanitarian and human-rights claims. His original asylum account made no reference to a blood feud. He later asserted that his family was involved in a blood feud and that his father had been murdered for that reason.

The first immigration judge allowed the appeal but gave inadequate reasons for accepting the account as credible. On reconsideration, Senior Immigration Judge Lane found a material error of law and ordered a fresh reconsideration. Immigration Judge Cohen rejected the claim on credibility grounds. The central issues before the Court of Appeal were whether the first reconsideration had been lawfully ordered and whether the later credibility findings were irrational or legally flawed.

1. Ground 1 dismissed. Senior Immigration Judge Lane was entitled to find that the first immigration judge had erred in law. The credibility reasoning failed to address the substantial arguments advanced by the presenting officer, including the inconsistency between the appellant’s earlier account that his father died in an industrial accident and his later account that he was shot. Both parties were entitled to credibility findings which were adequately reasoned.
2. The challenge to Immigration Judge Cohen’s factual conclusions failed. The judge was entitled to regard the delayed disclosure of the blood-feud account, the appellant’s lack of detail about the alleged feud and his father’s death, discrepancies concerning ages, and aspects of the schooling account as damaging to credibility. Those conclusions could not properly be characterised as perverse.
3. Ground 3 had merit to the limited extent that Immigration Judge Cohen overstated the objective evidence by treating a claimed 1991 killing as contrary to it. The evidence showed that killings had occurred in Albania over a long period, and the report offered little or no support on that issue rather than contradicting the claim. The Court nevertheless asked whether it was confident that the outcome would have been no different without the error. The judge had already given clear, precise and very damaging reasons for rejecting the account, so the error was immaterial.
4. It was unnecessary for the immigration judge to examine the later documentation in detail once the appellant’s account had been rejected on powerful independent credibility grounds. The postdated documents, said to evidence reconciliation efforts, also cast doubt on their authenticity. The appeal was dismissed.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) [2008] EWCA Civ 127: appeal dismissed.
• Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: Immigration Judge Cohen, on second-stage reconsideration, dismissed the appeal on asylum, humanitarian and human-rights grounds after Senior Immigration Judge Lane had found a material error of law in Immigration Judge O’Garro’s determination and ordered a fresh reconsideration.
• Secretary of State’s decision: the application for further leave to remain was refused.