HE (DRC - Credibility and Psychiatric Reports)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 16 December 2004 |
| Date | 16 December 2004 |
| Court | Immigration Appeals Tribunal |
Immigration Appeal Tribunal
The Honourable Mr Justice Ouseley (President), Mr M E Fraenkel and Dr J O De Barros
Representation:
Mr K Kuranchie, Refugee Legal Centre, for the Claimant;
Mr C P Buckley, Home Office Presenting Officer, for the Respondent.
Cases referred to in the judgment:
CI (Link to Mobutu) Democratic Republic of Congo CG [2004] UKIAT 00072
Ibrahim v Secretary of State for the Home Department [1998] INLR 511
Evidence medical and psychiatric reports assessment of credibility
The Claimant was a citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Adjudicator had dismissed her appeal on asylum and human rights grounds, and had made strong adverse credibility findings in respect of the Claimant and her daughter. The Adjudicator also concluded that since the medical report detailing the Claimant's condition was based largely on her own account, which he had found not to be credible, he was unable to attach much weight to it. The Claimant appealed.
Held, dismissing the appeal:
(1) since a doctor would not usually assess the credibility of a patient, a medical report would nearly always accept at face value the patient's account of his or her history; a doctor may be able to offer an opinion as to the degree of consistency between the Claimant's account and the physical condition; a conclusion as to mere consistency with a Claimant's account did not lend significant separate support to the claim, it only had the effect of not negating it; the weight that could be attached to such a report when assessing credibility was limited (para 17);
(2) in the case of psychiatric reports it was often more difficult for psychiatrists to treat observations as objectively verified, since symptoms were more readily feigned; it was also more difficult for there to be any verification of conditions which psychiatrists could not observe, and for which they were wholly reliant on the accounts of their patients; a further problem in relation to psychiatric reports being used as support for a Claimant's credibility was that there were often other discernible causes for the Claimant's symptoms; the usefulness of a psychiatric report to assist in the assessment of credibility would therefore be very limited; in respect of this Claimant, the psychiatric report was of no real value in assessing credibility (para 18);
(3) where the report was specifically relied on as a relevant factor for the assessment of credibility, the correct approach for Adjudicators to take was to deal with it as an integral part of the findings on credibility, rather than as an additional consideration that did not undermine the conclusions to which they had otherwise come (para 22);
(4) where a representative sought to persuade the Tribunal that a medical report should be given weight in the assessment of credibility, the aspects in respect of which it afforded support to the Claimant's account had to be identified (para 22).
Determination and Reasons
Mr Justice Ouseley:
[1] The Appellant is a citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo, born on 1 January 1940. She arrived in the United Kingdom by air on 6 April 2002 and sought asylum two days later. This was refused on 6 June 2002. Her appeal against that refusal was dismissed on asylum and human rights grounds by an Adjudicator, Mr B Grewal, in a determination promulgated on 21 November 2002.
[2] The Adjudicator set out the evidence at some length. It included evidence from the Appellant herself and also from her daughter who had been in the United Kingdom since about 1995, who herself was said to have an outstanding asylum claim.
[3] One of the grounds of appeal is that there were areas of the claim which the Adjudicator did not deal with. However, the claim, as he set out it, was that the Appellant left Kinshasa in 1998, having lived there for nearly forty years with her husband and family, and went to live in the rural east of the country. They left three children behind and lost all contact with them. After a while, and the Adjudicator took it to be about 2001, she began to experience difficulties with the rebels. She hid her nephew in the forest from the rebels who wanted to recruit him. They demanded to know where he was, beat her, took her husband away and burnt her home down. She tried unsuccessfully to find her nephew and grandchild in the forest. She walked to a mission where the priest took her to a man who helped her by taking her to another man, who drove her to the airport and assisted her to board. She had not known till then that she was going to board an aeroplane. Nor did she know where she was going. She only thought she was in Europe when she landed in the United Kingdom, where she knew her daughter was. She met some people who spoke Lingala, and they asked friends if they knew her daughter. They did, and that same day she met her daughter and has lived with her ever since. The daughter said that it was a few days later that they met up.
[4] The Appellant was said to be in need of international protection because she had problems in rebel-held areas, and could not return to Kinshasa because she had lived in a rebel-held area, would be suspected of rebel connections or would be in further difficulties because her husband had been a Mobutu soldier. She also had medical problems, including PTSD, and had no known relatives in Kinshasa. It would breach Articles 3 and 8 to return her to Kinshasa.
[5] The Adjudicator rejected her claim. He said that she had not been involved in any political activity, and had not been detained by DRC authorities. Her fear of harassment by rebels because she would not tell them of the whereabouts of her nephew and grandchild did not amount to a well-founded fear of persecution. That would not put her in any difficulties vis a vis the government. She would not be returned to a rebel controlled area and even if that were to happen she was unlikely to be of any interest to them. The Adjudicator then went on to make a series of strong adverse credibility findings. As issue was taken with the rationality of these, we set them out.
17. Like the Secretary of State I find the appellant's account of her escape from DRC as completely incredible. I find her account of walking through the forest and surviving on bananas and cassava implausible. She claims to have slept in the forest without any cover or shelter and yet the appellant says in paragraph 5 of her statement at B10 that she was able to keep in touch with the people of her village and that they told her about the rebels and that her husband was still with the rebels. I simply do not believe the appellant's story. In my view the villagers would not have risked contacting the appellant in the forest knowing that her husband was involved with the rebels. I find the rest of the story about her journey even more incredible. I find it incredible that the priest would risk all by sheltering the appellant and then taking her to ( ) house. I simply do not believe the story of her journey with ( ) who allegedly took his bicycle and they went through the forest. She would have me believe that this man walked with her for a whole week before he literally handed her over to another man along with an envelope which was apparently stuffed presumably with money. She would further have me believe that this man made all the arrangements for her travel to the United Kingdom and then in fact travelled with her all the way to the United Kingdom. I was given no explanation whatsoever why ( ) would be interested in parting with a large amount of money to help the appellant whom he had not met before. In my view the whole story is a complete fabrication and it damages the appellant's credibility very seriously indeed.
18. I also take into account the fact that the appellant and her daughter gave differing accounts about how the appellant traced her daughter. Once...
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