MK v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

A tribunal must give clear and adequate reasons for its decision. The required detail is context-sensitive, but the decision must identify the issue, the evidential basis for the conclusion, and why material competing evidence was rejected.

Where oral evidence is found implausible, incredible or unreliable, the tribunal should state the reasons for that finding. Where a significant document is given no weight, the tribunal must explain why. A bare assertion that a witness is not believed, or that a document carries no weight, will rarely suffice. Unexplained refusal to receive material original evidence may also render the hearing unfair.

The Secretary of State refused the appellant's asylum application and proposed his removal to Pakistan. The appellant relied on his asserted adherence to the Ahmadi faith, including a letter from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association.

The First-tier Tribunal dismissed the appeal. It gave the association's letter no weight, declined to consider the original letter, and made strongly adverse credibility findings. The appellant appealed on the grounds that the First-tier Tribunal had not given adequate reasons for its treatment of the letter or for its credibility assessment.

The central issue was whether those failures amounted to material errors of law requiring the decision to be set aside.

1. Appeal allowed. The First-tier Tribunal's decision was set aside for material errors of law and the appeal was remitted to a differently constituted First-tier Tribunal.

2. The association's letter was important, independent evidence capable of verifying the appellant's claimed religious adherence. Although the weight of the letter was for the First-tier Tribunal, its outright rejection required articulated findings and reasons. The generic reference to the appellant's lack of credibility did not explain why the free-standing document received no weight.

3. The First-tier Tribunal also acted unfairly by refusing, without rational explanation, to receive and consider the original letter when invited to do so. That refusal was inconsistent with the requirement that justice be seen to be done.

4. The adverse credibility findings were similarly inadequate. Findings based on prevarication, vagueness, imprecision, manner or dishonesty must be explained sufficiently to show why the evidence was rejected. Here the findings were unreasoned, unexplained and unillustrated; neither the parties nor an appellate court could safely infer their basis.

5. The First-tier Tribunal's alternative conclusion that the appellant would at most be a low-level Ahmadi supporter could not cure the errors. It might have been influenced by the flawed primary credibility assessment and could not remedy the unfairness. The Upper Tribunal declined to remake the decision because the appellant was entitled to a fair hearing at first instance and on appeal.

• Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber): Allowed the appellant's appeal on an error of law, set aside the First-tier Tribunal's decision and remitted the case to a differently constituted First-tier Tribunal.

• First-tier Tribunal: Dismissed the appellant's appeal against the refusal of asylum and proposed removal to Pakistan.