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

Where a medical diagnosis may affect credibility in an asylum appeal, the tribunal must clearly state whether it accepts the diagnosis and, if so, its effect on the evidence. A diagnosis cannot be rejected on inadequate or unfair reasoning. The Court of Appeal should avoid a microscopic search for error, but must intervene where the tribunal’s approach to a material issue is unclear and the case required anxious scrutiny. An error is material where the court cannot know how the evidence might have been assessed had the diagnosis been accepted.

The appellant, an Iranian national, appealed against the refusal of her asylum and human-rights claim. The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal dismissed her appeal on reconsideration, after an earlier determination had been found legally flawed in its approach to credibility. She argued that the Tribunal had failed to make a clear finding about her alleged post-traumatic stress disorder and had inadequately addressed the evidence of two medical experts. The Secretary of State argued that any error was immaterial because the diagnosis could not explain the major contradictions in her account. The central issue was whether the Tribunal’s reasoning sufficiently disclosed its approach to the diagnosis and its possible effect on credibility.

1. Appeal allowed and remitted. The Tribunal’s treatment of the alleged post-traumatic stress disorder was legally inadequate. Its determination did not clearly disclose whether the diagnosis was accepted or rejected. If accepted, it did not explain what significance the diagnosis had in assessing the appellant’s evidence.
2. If the diagnosis was rejected, the reasons were legally insufficient and unfair. The medical experts necessarily relied to some extent on what the appellant reported. The Tribunal should have ensured that it had the relevant objective material before rejecting the diagnosis of both experts. Its reasoning failed to give the case the anxious scrutiny required.
3. The error was material. Although it might be difficult to attribute all the unsatisfactory evidence to post-traumatic stress disorder, the court could not know how the Tribunal would have approached the evidence had it accepted the diagnosis. The Tribunal had also inaccurately represented Dr Huws’s report by treating it as excluding the possibility that major contradictions could arise from the condition.
4. The guidance in AH (Sudan) [2007] UKHL 49 and Entry Clearance Officer, Mumbai v NH (India) [2007] EWCA Civ 1330 required caution against a microscopic search for error. It did not prevent intervention where the reasoning on a material issue was unclear.
5. The second ground, alleging that the Tribunal improperly discounted Dr Huws’s evidence because it was described as opinion, added nothing to the first ground. The court also declined to treat the determination as a country guidance case.

The matter was remitted for a further hearing at the second reconsideration stage.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): allowed the appeal against the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal’s determination notified on 16 July 2009 following reconsideration on 24 June 2009, and remitted the matter for a further hearing at the second reconsideration stage.
• Asylum and Immigration Tribunal: dismissed the appellant’s appeal on reconsideration. The first-stage reconsideration had found the earlier Immigration Judge’s determination legally flawed because of an impermissible approach to credibility.
• Immigration Judge: dismissed the appellant’s appeal against the Secretary of State’s refusal of her claim.