Rehman Mansoor Butt v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Paragraph 245AA(b) of HC 395 governs the Secretary of State’s consideration of documents submitted with an application. It does not require a Tribunal to adjourn where an appellant produces purported specified documents only at the hearing, or too late for verification steps to be taken.

The Tribunal must assess all the evidence before it. A document is not a specified document merely because it appears facially compliant; it must be accepted as what it purports to be. The rule concerning proof of forgery does not prevent findings that documents are insufficiently genuine or reliable where the finding follows an assessment of the evidence as a whole.

The appellant, a Pakistani national, applied for further leave to remain as a Tier 1 (General) Migrant. The Secretary of State refused the application because the material submitted did not establish the previous earnings needed to obtain the required points.

At the First-tier Tribunal hearing, the appellant relied on a new bundle containing material said to support earnings from private-hire driving and consultancy work. The judge admitted the bundle but found the documents unreliable and dismissed the appeal. The appellant contended that the judge had to accept facially compliant specified documents or adjourn for verification by the Secretary of State.

The Upper Tribunal considered the effect of paragraph 245AA(b) of HC 395, the Tribunal’s evidential function, and the relevance of RP (proof of forgery) Nigeria [2006] UKAIT 00086.

1. Appeal dismissed. The First-tier Tribunal’s decision stood. Its assessment of the late documentary evidence disclosed no error of law.

2. Paragraph 245AA(b) of HC 395 concerns the Secretary of State’s decision-making process in respect of material submitted with an application. It did not oblige the Tribunal to adjourn so that the Secretary of State could verify documents which the appellant had chosen to produce for the first time at the hearing. Neither represented party sought an adjournment.

3. The judicial task includes making findings on the evidence. A document does not become a specified document simply because it appears to be one. The judge was entitled to assess whether it was what it purported to be and to consider its reliability in the context of all the evidence.

4. The judge’s findings were open to him. Repeated fare sequences, the appellant’s unconvincing explanation, and the vague and unsupported account of consultancy work entitled the judge to doubt the authenticity and reliability of the material and to refuse points for claimed earnings.

5. RP (proof of forgery) Nigeria [2006] UKAIT 00086 did not assist the appellant. That authority concerned proof of an allegation of forgery. Paragraph 245AA(b) instead permits documents to be discounted where there is reason to doubt their genuineness and they cannot be verified. The finding here rested on the evidence as a whole, not on a bare allegation of forgery.

• Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber): dismissed the appellant’s appeal and upheld the First-tier Tribunal’s dismissal.

• First-tier Tribunal: dismissed the appeal against the refusal of leave to remain after finding the late-produced earnings evidence unreliable.