R v Secretary of state for the home department ex parte Suat Bakis
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 03 November 1995 |
| Date | 03 November 1995 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
Court of Appeal
Leggatt, Morritt, Schiemann LJJ
Miss J Francis for the applicant
H Harrop-Griffiths for the respondent
Case referred to in the judgments:
R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Suat Bakis (unreported, QBD, 1 November 1995).
Political asylum no appearance by applicant before special adjudicator non-attendance fault of then representatives request that Secretary of State refer case back to adjudicator whether refusal to do so unreasonable discrepancies in various accounts given by applicant credibility held to be damaged whether that made reference desirable for discrepancies to be explained or resolved. Immigration Act 1971 s.21.
Renewed application for leave to move for judicial review following refusal by McCullough J. The applicant was a citizen of Turkey. He had been refused asylum by the Secretary of State. He appealed. Because of an error by his then representatives he did not appear before the adjudicator. The adjudicator determined the case on the papers and dismissed the appeal. He was led principally to dismiss the appeal because of the significant discrepancies in the various accounts of material events given by or on behalf of the applicant: he had not found him credible.
The applicant's new representatives asked the Secretary of State to refer the case back to the adjudicator so that the discrepancies might be explained or resolved. The Secretary of State declined to do so.
Before the court counsel argued that because credibility was central to the case the applicant should have the opportunity of explaining matters to the adjudicator and the Secretary of State's refusal was unreasonable.
Held
1. The assessment of credibility did not necessarily depend on seeing an appellant, as counsel had argued. Two firms of experienced solicitors had made written submissions but those submissions had lent no support to any credibility on behalf of the applicant who had damaged his credibility by telling different stories at different interviews.
2. If counsel's submission were upheld it would apply to every case of political asylum where an applicant did not turn up before an adjudicator and then asserted he had another unidentified story which might be credible.
3. The Secretary of State's decision was not unreasonable.
Leggatt LJ: Schiemann LJ will give the first judgment.
Schiemann LJ: This is a renewed application for leave to move for judicial review, leave having been refused by McCullough J. The decision of the Secretary of State for the Home Department which is sought to be impugned is one made under section 21 of the Immigration Act 1971 which reads:
Where in any case
(a) an adjudicator has dismissed an appeal, and there has been no further appeal to the Appeal Tribunal
the Secretary of State may at any time refer for consideration under this section any matter relating to the case which was not before the adjudicator or Tribunal.
(2) Any reference under this section shall be to an adjudicator or to the Appeal Tribunal, and the adjudicator or Tribunal shall consider the matter which is the subject of the reference and report to the Secretary of State the opinion of the adjudicator or the Tribunal thereon.
The background to the present case is helpfully set out in the Form 86A and is as follows:
The Applicant is a Turkish national of Kurdish ethnic origin who arrived in the United Kingdom on 20th April 1994 and applied for asylum on arrival.
He was interviewed on 20 April and interviewed again on 29 April 1994 and he was...
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