Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: AA/01725/2013

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Field House
Determination Promulgated
On 12th June 2013
On 13th June 2013

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MARTIN
dEPUTY Upper Tribunal Judge grimes

Between

miss meseret mengistu tekle
Appellant

and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT

Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Miss A Radford (instructed by Blavo & Co, solicitors)
For the Respondent: Ms H Horsley, Home Office Presenting Officer

DETERMINATION AND REASONS

1. This is an appeal to the Upper Tribunal by the Appellant, with permission, in relation to a determination of First-tier Tribunal Judge Broe promulgated on 12th April 2013.
2. The Appellant is a citizen of Ethiopia. She applied unsuccessfully for leave to enter the UK for settlement in February 2007. She then applied for and was refused leave to enter as a family visitor in June 2009. She appealed successfully in 2010 and was granted a family visit visa. She arrived in the UK in February 2010 and in July sought leave to remain. That was refused. She applied again for leave to remain in September 2010 but as she had no extant leave that was refused with no right of appeal. An application for Judicial Review was refused in January 2012. On 10th January 2013 she claimed asylum. That application was refused on 8th February 2013 and that is the decision relevant to this appeal.
3. Her appeal came before the First-tier Tribunal on 26th March 2013 when it was dismissed on all grounds.
4. The grounds upon which permission to appeal was granted assert essentially that the Judge failed to engage with the evidence, should have adjourned as the Appellant’s representatives had requested for an expert’s report and that the findings are inadequately reasoned.
5. We do not criticise the First-tier Tribunal for refusing the adjournment application. The representatives wished to obtain a medical report but as the Judge pointed out; they had been seized of the matter for some time and ought to have dealt with this earlier. The other issue was the verification of documents from Ethiopia only submitted at the hearing. It seems to us that the representatives were asking the Home Office to verify the documents which it was not prepared to do. The Record of Proceedings does not suggest that the representatives were going to do this.
6. However we do agree that the determination is inadequately reasoned, fails to engage with the evidence and fails to engage with the issues in the case.
7. The First-tier Tribunal set out the details of the Appellant’s claim from paragraphs 13 to 28. The findings of fact and credibility occupy a mere 4 paragraphs.
8. The Judge finds against the Appellant because of the delay in her claiming asylum while ignoring that her case was a Sur Place claim and only arose in late 2012. He dismisses it as a fabricated account without giving reasons.
9. The Judge refers to the Appellant’s late claim to be a member of OLF but if he had read her supplemental statement handed in at the hearing he would have seen that she did not so claim.
10. The Judge criticises the late production of the documents when they were brought to the UK in January 2013 without saying why he rejected the Appellant’s and her witness’s explanation for that. That appears to be the Judge’s only reason for placing no reliance on the documents.
11. The Judge says that he has taken into account all the documents but that statement is insufficient to lead to a conclusion that he has in fact done so when there is no mention of a potentially crucial document – a letter from the political affairs co-ordinator of EPPF in exile in Germany that potentially corroborates the Appellant’s claim.
12. It is open to a Judge to reject documents and make adverse credibility findings but theses have to be adequately reasoned and in this case they were not.
13. A failure to give adequate reasons and a failure to engage with the evidence is a material error of law. We set aside the determination and we preserve none of the findings.
14. Miss Radford submitted that as there are three witnesses to give oral evidence and many facts at issue it would be a more efficient use of the Tribunal’s resources to remit the matter to the First-tier Tribunal. We agree.
15. We therefore remit the matter to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard de novo before any First-tier Tribunal Judge other than Judge Broe.
16. As Miss Radford indicated that the Appellant’s representatives would be obtaining an expert’s report on the documents we did not list it for hearing. We direct that the Appellant’s representatives notify the Resident Judge at Hatton Cross within 14 days of to-day as to how long the expert requires to submit his report so that it can be listed accordingly.

Signed Date 12th June 2013

Upper Tribunal Judge Martin