Alan Omer Azizi v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

A tribunal may give succinct reasons if it resolves the principal controversial issues, addresses the parties’ material points, and enables them to understand why the decision was reached. It need not address every item of evidence or submission, particularly where a peripheral point cannot overcome fundamental credibility findings.

Where an appellant admits lies in an earlier immigration claim, the fact-finder should consider the explanation for them and decide whether it is accepted. Deliberate lies told to obtain protection on a false basis may properly bear heavily on overall credibility, especially where the explanation has been considered and rejected.

The appellant, an Iraqi national, appealed against the First-tier Tribunal’s decision of 11 February 2023 dismissing his protection and human-rights appeal.

He had previously claimed asylum on a false account that he was Iranian and at risk because of Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran activities. In the present claim he said that he had lied because he feared return to Iraq, and that he was now at risk from his wife’s family after a marriage said to have brought dishonour on them.

The First-tier Tribunal rejected his account, the threatening messages and the claimed significance of the marriage documents. The central issue was whether its short credibility findings disclosed an error of law.

1. Appeal dismissed. The First-tier Tribunal made no material error of law in dismissing the appellant’s protection claim.

2. The proper starting point was the adverse credibility findings in the earlier appeal, consistently with Devaseelan [2002] UKIAT 00702. The appellant’s admission that his earlier account had been wholly false confirmed that the earlier judge had been entitled to reject him as unreliable. The question was whether there was a reason to depart from those findings in assessing the new account.

3. The submission based on Uddin [2020] EWCA Civ 338 did not assist on these facts. The appellant’s earlier lies were deliberately told to secure protection and avoid return to Iraq, rather than arising from an unrelated source such as shame, humiliation or confusion. In any event, the First-tier Tribunal considered and rejected his explanation for lying. Its assessment therefore addressed the relevant fact-finding question.

4. The reasons, though brief, dealt with the material evidence: the explanation for the earlier lies, the limited value of the messages and marriage documents, and the implausibility of the claimed continuing risk after an arranged marriage, cohabitation and children. The tribunal was not required to give reasons for its reasons or to deal expressly with every selected item of country material. The omitted country material was peripheral and could not repair an account found fundamentally incredible.

5. There was no indication that the First-tier Tribunal had applied the wrong standard of proof. Since the credibility challenge failed, the consequential challenge concerning risk on return did not arise.

• Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber): dismissed the appeal and upheld the First-tier Tribunal’s dismissal of the protection and human-rights appeal.
• First-tier Tribunal: dismissed the appellant’s appeal on 11 February 2023.