AK (Failure to assess witnesses’ evidence)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | L V Waumsley,Vice President |
| Judgment Date | 23 August 2004 |
| Neutral Citation | [2004] UKIAT 230 |
| Court | Immigration Appeals Tribunal |
| Date | 23 August 2004 |
[2004] UKIAT 230
IMMIGRATION APPEAL TRIBUNAL
Mr L V Waumsley (Vice President)
Ms V S Street
Mr M L James
For the Appellant: Mr S Taghavi of counsel, instructed by Hackney Law Centre
For the Respondent: Mr C Buckley, Home Office Presenting Officer
AK (Failure to assess witnesses' evidence) Turkey
The appellant, a citizen of Turkey, appeals with permission against the determination of an adjudicator (Mr B M Suchak), sitting at Taylor House, in which he dismissed the appellant's appeal on both asylum and human rights grounds against the respondent's decision to give directions for his removal from United Kingdom as an illegal entrant after refusing an application for asylum made by him.
The appellant arrived in the United Kingdom in March 2000. He applied for asylum some three weeks later. The grounds on which he did so were that he and a number of the other members of his family were involved with TKP/ML (Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist Leninist) and TIKKO (Turkish Workers and Peasants Liberation Army), and as a consequence he had been detained and ill-treated by the Turkish authorities in the past. He therefore feared that he would be at risk of further detention and ill-treatment for the same reason if he were to be returned to Turkey.
In his determination, the adjudicator rejected the appellant's evidence in all material respects. In arriving at that conclusion, he took into account the fact that the adjudicator who had heard the appellant's previous asylum appeal had found him to be “totally lacking in credibility”. He concluded that the appellant had never in fact been involved with TKP/ML and TIKKO as claimed. It was on that basis that he dismissed the appeal on both asylum and human rights grounds.
The appellant's challenge to the adjudicator's determination was based on a number of grounds which may be summarised as follows:
- The adjudicator erred in his approach to the determination of the first adjudicator; 2. He failed to make proper findings of fact on material issues; 3. He failed to give proper consideration to the psychiatric evidence; 4. He erred in his assessment of the risk to the appellant on return to Turkey; 5. He erred in his assessment of the claim under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
At the start of the hearing before us, Mr Buckley, who appeared for the respondent, acknowledged that the adjudicator's determination was unsustainable, and that the appeal would inevitably have to be remitted for rehearing by another adjudicator. Mr Taghavi, who appeared for the appellant, confirmed that he was content with that the proposal.
With respect to this experienced adjudicator, we are bound to say that Mr Buckley was entirely right to concede that the determination was plainly unsustainable. Our principal reason for arriving at that conclusion arises out of the second ground of appeal referred to above. The adjudicator has recorded in his determination that oral evidence was given before him, not only by the appellant himself, but by no less than five witnesses who were called on his behalf. The adjudicator has referred to the evidence given by those witnesses at paragraphs 9 to 13 (inclusive) of his determination.
However, the adjudicator's references to the evidence given by those five witnesses are wholly inadequate. By way of example, at paragraph 9 of his determination, he has recorded the evidence given by the second witness in the following terms:
“The second person called to evidence (sic) was the appellant's wife, [ ]. She relied on her witness statement. She takes tablets for her back pain”.
The evidence given by the remaining four witnesses is recorded in the following four paragraphs of the determination in similarly cryptic terms. There is no further reference in the determination to any part of that evidence, apart from a brief reference at paragraph 26 in the...
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Bj (nigeria) For Judicial Review)
...Secretary of State engage with the terms of Dr Tagg’s Reports. Reference was made to AK (Failure to access witnesses’ evidence) Turkey [2004] UKIAT 230 (“AK”) as an example of a similar failure by an adjudicator to carry out any assessment of psychiatric or medical evidence and a consequent......
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Upper Tribunal (Immigration and asylum chamber), 2019-05-01, HU/11350/2018
...findings on her evidence. He referred to the guidance provided by the Tribunal in AK (Failure to assess witnesses’ evidence) Turkey [2004] UKIAT 00230 in which the Tribunal stressed the importance of making an assessment on credibility of evidence. Even though the Judge had considered the e......
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Upper Tribunal (Immigration and asylum chamber), 2017-03-22, AA/10610/2015
...applied the wrong standard of proof. The Judge erred by not following the guidance in AK (Failure to assess witnesses’ evidence) Tukey [2004] UKIAT 00230 and BP (Sri Lanka) [2015] EWCA Civ 635. My Syed-Ali further submitted that the Judge erred by placing too much weight on the appellant no......
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Upper Tribunal (Immigration and asylum chamber), 2015-05-15, IA/15233/2014
...was a witness but made no findings about her other two daughters who were also witnesses. He refers me to the authority of AK (Turkey) [2004] UKIAT 00230 where the Tribunal reiterated at paragraph 12 and set out “the necessity to make proper findings of fact in relation to all the oral evid......