HH (medical evidence; effect of Mibanga)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | P R Lane,Senior Immigration Judge |
| Judgment Date | 25 November 2005 |
| Neutral Citation | [2005] UKAIT 164 |
| Court | Asylum and Immigration Tribunal |
| Date | 25 November 2005 |
[2005] UKAIT 164
Asylum and Immigration Tribunal
THE IMMIGRATION ACTS
Mr A R Mackey (Senior Immigration Judge)
Mr P R Lane (Senior Immigration Judge)
For the Appellant: Mr D Bazini, Counsel, instructed by Messrs Hanne & Co, Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr L Tarlow, Home Office Presenting Officer
HH (medical evidence; effect of Mibanga) Ethiopia
This determination is reported for what is said at paragraph 21 about the case of Mibanga [2005] EWCA Civ 367
The appellant, a citizen of Ethiopia born on 18 February 1985, claims to have arrived in the United Kingdom on 15 March 2005. She claimed asylum on 17 March 2005 and on 6 April 2005 her asylum claim was refused and a decision was made by the respondent to remove the appellant as an illegal entrant.
The appellant appealed against that decision to an Immigration Judge, Mr N Froom, sitting at Hatton Cross, who by a determination that followed a hearing on 5 July 2005 dismissed the appellant's appeal on asylum and human rights grounds. On 28 July 2005 an order was made under section 103A of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 for the reconsideration of the Immigration Judge's determination. The appellant's application to the High Court for an order for reconsideration asserts that the Immigration Judge erred in law in coming to his adverse credibility findings regarding the appellant's account of her experiences in Ethiopia. Given that the grounds consist of a series of criticisms of almost all of the Immigration Judge's credibility findings, it will be convenient for the Tribunal to deal with those grounds, and Mr Bazini's submissions in support of them, as we describe the Judge's findings.
At paragraph 21 of the determination, the Immigration Judge recorded that the appellant's alleged fear of the Ethiopian authorities arose from the activities of her uncle and of her father with the Oromo Liberation Front (“OLF”). At her Home Office interview, the appellant had been unable to say what “OLF” stood for, who was its leader or what its aims and objectives were. She claimed, however, to know that her father and uncle were not involved in violent activities with the organisation but that they were “collecting money to buy weapons”. She knew that the uncle and father held meetings every week but did not know what these meetings were about. In her later written statement, the appellant sought to explain her lack of knowledge by saying that she did not attend the meetings, but just carried in the drinks. It did not occur to her to ask her uncle or father about their positions.
At paragraph 22, the Immigration Judge, having noted that the appellant's residence in Addis Ababa, as opposed to Oromiya, might have accounted “in part for her lack of interest in Oromo issues” and that she “may have been deliberately kept apart from what would have been illegal meetings”, nevertheless found “it very difficult to reconcile the appellant's account that her closest relatives were involved with OLF and hosted regular meetings with her almost total lack of knowledge about the movement”. The Immigration Judge found it “hard to imagine how an Oromo living with OLF activists over a period of years in early adulthood could fail to pick up the basics about the organisation”.
Mr Bazini submitted that those last two findings of the Immigration Judge did not sit comfortably with his earlier observation regarding the appellant who, it is common ground, lived at all material times with her uncle. The Tribunal does not agree. The Immigration Judge was fully entitled as a matter of law to find it incredible that the appellant could have lived with someone who was hosting regular OLF meetings, and yet not know anything of significance about that organisation. Mr Bazini submitted that it was speculation to infer that the appellant and her uncle must have spoken about such matters, if the appellant were telling the truth. No impermissible speculation was, however, involved. The Immigration Judge had the benefit of hearing and seeing the appellant give her evidence. There is nothing perverse or otherwise unlawful in his conclusion that it was simply not believable that a person in the appellant's position, who knew that her father and uncle were collecting money to buy weapons but were nevertheless not involved “in violent activities”, would simply not know anything of significance about the organisation in whose name her father and uncle allegedly carried out these activities.
At paragraph 23, the Immigration Judge explained why he did not consider certain alleged discrepancies in the appellant's evidence to be of significance. At paragraph 24, however, he set out what he regarded as significant “confusion” in the appellant's evidence about where people were when they were arrested. At interview, the appellant had said that her father and uncle were arrested in January 2005 and that her father was “in the house” and she did not know where her uncle was arrested. In her statement, however, she had said that her father had gone out at the time that he was arrested and her uncle was arrested at his home. When the point was put to the appellant in cross-examination, she said that she had said at interview that her uncle was at home. The Immigration Judge, however, noted that “that is not what was recorded at her interview and the error was not corrected in the letter” (that is to say, the letter from the appellant's solicitors to the respondent, commenting on the interview record — see paragraph 9 below).
The grounds accompanying the application for reconsideration sought to show that the Immigration Judge was incorrect in inferring that the relevant passage in the appellant's interview record related to her father's second arrest. Before the Tribunal, Mr Bazini did not seek to advance that assertion, which we in any event find to be false. On any proper reading of questions 31 to 39 of the interview record, the appellant was describing the father's second arrest.
Before the Tribunal, Mr Bazini's criticism of paragraph 24 of the determination was advanced on a different basis. At paragraph 23, the Immigration Judge, referring to the Court of Appeal judgment in Dirshe [2005] EWCA Civ 421, had chosen to disregard certain discrepancies in the appellant's evidence, on the ground that the appellant was not accompanied by a solicitor at her interview and that the interview record had not been read back to her at the time. It was in effect illogical of the Immigration Judge, Mr Bazini contended, to adopt a different approach in paragraph 24, in relation to the location and timing of the arrest of family members, given the Judge's implied acceptance that there had been problems with the interview.
The Tribunal does not accept this submission. The Immigration Judge has given a legally coherent reason why he found as he did at paragraph 24: namely, that the undated letter from the appellant's solicitors, which appears to have been sent within 5 working days of the interview on 24 March 2005, dealt with certain corrections to what was recorded in the interview record, but that these did not include the issue of where and when people had been arrested. That issue was not dealt with until the appellant's written statement of 25 April 2005, where differences with the interview record were apparent. The...
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