Ali Ahmad Rashid, R (on the application of) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Country guidance remains authoritative where a later appeal depends on the same or similar evidence. It does not relieve a decision-maker of the duty to assess materially different or more recent evidence relevant to a risk not addressed by the guidance.

A generic expert report may require serious consideration even where an earlier tribunal has rejected the claimant’s personal account. It is irrational to assume that no weight would be given to such a report merely because it was prepared for another case. A fresh-claim decision which fails to engage with that evidence lacks anxious scrutiny.

The applicant, an Iranian national, had previously been refused asylum. His appeal was dismissed after adverse credibility findings, including findings that he had no credible political profile or history of adverse interest from the Iranian authorities.

In further submissions, he relied on a generic expert report by Professor Joffé concerning conditions in Iran, Kurdish ethnicity and the treatment of returned failed asylum seekers. The Secretary of State refused to treat the submissions as a fresh claim, relying on country guidance including SB (risk on return – illegal exit) Iran CG [2009] UKAIT 00053.

The judicial review concerned whether the Secretary of State had lawfully assessed the expert report when deciding that the submissions disclosed no realistic prospect of success.

1. The application succeeded. The Upper Tribunal quashed the Secretary of State’s decision refusing to treat the further submissions as a fresh claim.

2. The country guidance authorities largely concerned risk factors different from those advanced here. None addressed the risk on return of an Iranian Kurd who was a failed asylum seeker. Country guidance is authoritative where a later appeal depends on the same or similar evidence, but Professor Joffé’s report supplied different and more recent material.

3. The Secretary of State was therefore not entitled to conclude that the report could not justify departure from the existing country guidance. The report contained material capable of supporting a risk to Kurds not confined to political activists, and material concerning the treatment of returned failed asylum seekers.

4. The earlier adverse credibility findings remained relevant because a future First-tier Tribunal would begin from the position that the applicant had no credible personal history. They did not make the generic evidence irrelevant. That evidence required serious consideration alongside other country material.

5. The assertion that an Immigration Judge would give no weight to the report because it was non-specific was irrational. The decision letter failed to scrutinise the report adequately in the context of the claim and was consequently unlawful.

• Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber): On judicial review, quashed the Secretary of State’s decision of 11 April 2013 refusing to accept the further submissions as a fresh claim.
• Earlier asylum appeal: The applicant’s appeal against the refusal of asylum was dismissed on 18 May 2010, with adverse credibility findings. No citation is stated.