R v Immigration Appellate Authority, ex parte Mohammed (Mukhtar Shala) sub nom R v Special Adjudicator, ex parte Mohammed (Mukhtar Shala)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 28 July 2000 |
| Date | 28 July 2000 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
Queen's Bench Division
Newman J
Miss R Baruah for the applicant
Miss J Richards for the respondent
Cases referred to in the judgment:
ChoudhuryUNK (unreported) (30 December 1994).
MakozoUNK (unreported) (12 February 1999).
Asylum appeal before special adjudicator ethnic origin and nationality of applicant in dispute documents supporting applicant's case alleged to be forgeries adjudicator relied on personal experiences in assessing issues whether internal evidence in documents may suffice to prove forgery.
The applicant seeking leave to apply for judicial review of the dismissal of his asylum appeal by a special adjudicator, claimed to be a Somali. The adjudicator rejected that claim. He concluded because of their internal nature that documents produced to support the applicant's case were forgeries and in his reasons he alluded to his own experiences to support his conclusions.
Counsel submitted that his approach to the issues was an error of law: there was no independent evidence to support a conclusion that the documents were forged and the adjudicator should not have relied on his personal experience in assessing the applicant's claim.
Held
1. It was not necessary for there to be direct or expert evidence to support a conclusion that documents were forged. The requirement was that there should be some evidence, whatever its source and a source was the document itself.
2. Reliance on personally acquired information such as was relied on by the adjudicator gave rise to a significant risk of unfairness to an appellant, who would be in no position to test the reliability of the matter being held against him. It should be avoided.
3. The references by the adjudicator to his previous employment had added nothing to his reasons: it was, as counsel suggested, a throwaway remark and had no place in a determination.
4. Nevertheless there had been ample acceptable evidence for the adjudicator's conclusions.
1. Newman J: The application for judicial review challenges the decision of a special adjudicator dated 14 October 1999. He dismissed the applicant's appeal against the refusal of asylum.
2. Miss Baruah, counsel for the applicant, submitted that the special adjudicator erred in law in concluding that two documents produced by the applicant at the hearing were forgeries. He concluded:
I agree it would have been interesting if both documents had been put to UNHCR for verification; but there is no question of any expert examination being required to show they are forgeries. I have no doubt the letter is a forgery; while I see no reasonable likelihood the card is not, if it did have any connection with the UNHCR, it had none with the claimed life history of this appellant.
3. Miss Baruah relied upon two decisions of the Immigration Appeal Tribunal: Francisco Smalto Makozo v Secretary of State for the Home Department (unreported, transcript dated 12 February 1999, and Akmed Hafiz Hussein Chowdhury v Entry Clearance Officer Dhaka (unreported, transcript dated 30 December 1994). She submitted that the case of Makozo established that it was not sufficient to rely upon bald assertions made on behalf of the Home Office, that documents are forged. As a matter of general principle, direct and or expert evidence is required. She submitted that the case of Choudhury supported her contention in conection with the need for expert evidene to be provided by the Home Office. She emphasised that the burden lies upon the Home Office and the above cases established the manner in which that burden was to be discharged.
Makozo
4. In Makozo, death certificates had been produced to verify the death of the appellant's mother and child, his wife and another daughter. The adjudicator had rejected the certificates as being forged, even though the certificate relating to the death of the appellant's first wife had been accepted by the United Kingdom Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages when the appellant was married. The appellant...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Ahmed v Secretary of State for the Home Department
...the apparent tension between the approach in ex parte Shen [2000] INLR 389 QBD (CO-3808-98) and that in ex parte Mukhtar Shala Mohammed [2001] Imm AR 162. 12 Ms Panagiotopoulou submitted that the Adjudicator erred in law when he said that it was for the Appellant to persuade him that the do......
-
Tanveer Ahmed v Secretary of State for the Home Department
...State for the Home Department ex parte Shen [2000] INLR 389. R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Mukhtar Mohammed [2001] Imm AR 162. R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Jose Davila-PugaECAS (C/2000/3119, May 2001, unreported). Makozo (20023) (unreport......
-
Upper Tribunal (Immigration and asylum chamber), 2002-02-19, [2002] UKIAT 439 (Ahmed (Tanveer) (Documents Unreliable and forged))
...the apparent tension between the approach in ex parte Shen [2000] INLR 389 QBD (CO-3808-98) and that in ex parte Mukhtar Shala Mohammed [2001] Imm AR 162. Ms Panagiotopoulou submitted that the Adjudicator erred in law when he said that it was for the Appellant to persuade him that the docum......
-
LS (Bajuni - Kibajuni Speaker)
...confusing anyone. Somali is of course a language from the wholly different Hamitic family: see the discussion in Mukhtar Shala Mohd. [2001] Imm AR 162. This asylum-seeker speaks no Somali at all, which the report suggest that she might have been expected to do, having lived in Kismayu all h......