R RA (Nigeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice David Richards |
| Judgment Date | 23 March 2016 |
| Neutral Citation | [2016] EWCA Civ 384 |
| Docket Number | C4/2015/0217 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 23 March 2016 |
[2016] EWCA Civ 384
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
(ANDREW THOMAS QC)
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice David Richards
C4/2015/0217
Mr R Halim (instructed by Duncan Lewis) appeared on behalf of the Appellant
Miss J Anderson (instructed by Government Legal Department) appeared on behalf of the Respondent
This is a renewed oral application for permission to appeal against a decision of Mr Andrew Thomas QC sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge in the Administrative Court, whereby he dismissed the application by the appellant for judicial review of a decision taken by the respondent Secretary of State dated 10 May 2013, whereby she refused to revoke a deportation order made against the appellant. In the decision, the respondent maintained a certificate placed on an anterior asylum claim that the application was clearly unfounded, thereby barring the appellant from making an in-country appeal against the decision. The relevant facts can be found in the judgment below, and I will not repeat them here.
There are two grounds of appeal advanced by the appellant. The first ground takes issue with a statement made by the judge in the concluding part of his judgment that:
"The defendant was entitled to take into account all of the other material which was available to her. On any view, Dr Sultan and Dr Burrun had far more information available to them than Dr Bell and had been better placed to assess the claimant."
Dr Sultan and Dr Burrun are psychiatrists who have treated the appellant during his detention, while Dr Bell is a distinguished psychiatrist who was consulted on the instructions of the appellant's solicitors, and who examined the appellant. It is said that it was on that basis that the judge dismissed the claim, and it is objected that it leads to the proposition that the views of an independent medical expert instructed by the appellant can never gain sufficient parity with the views of doctors working within the immigration removal centre where the appellant was held.
In my judgment, the judgment below does not involve that proposition. The judge was careful to read the reports of the psychiatrists and to weigh the decision of the respondent Secretary of State against those reports. I do not accept that the judgment indicates that if the judge had formed the view that it was unreasonable of the Secretary of State not to rely on the views of Dr Bell, that nonetheless the decision would have been correct simply because Dr Sultan and Dr Burrun had treated the appellant in the detention centres where he has been held. It does not appear to me that there is any proposition of that sort upon which the judge was relying. He was, in accordance with established authority, reviewing the...
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