Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: PA/02378/2016

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Glasgow
Decision & Reasons Promulgated
On 21 February 2017
On 2 March 2017

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MACLEMAN

Between

ALIAKBAR KAZEMIANSHAD
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

For the Appellant: Mr G P McGowan, of Quinn, Martin & Langan, Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mrs M O’Brien, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

DETERMINATION AND REASONS

1. The appellant appeals against a determination by First-tier Tribunal Judge Blair, promulgated on 19 December 2016, dismissing his appeal against refusal of protection. The overall complaint in his grounds is that the judge gave only three reasons for finding the appellant’s account not credible, and that all three are wrong.

The first ground.
2. The appellant says it was unreasonable for the judge to place substantial weight on whether a crash occurred when the appellant was turning a corner or carrying out a U-turn, given:
“a) The appellant’s drawing showed that the turn was on a stretch of roadway which had a central reservation and therefore the manoeuver could both be described as a U-turn or a turn round the corner. The appellant drew a sketch of turning the corner of his carriageway and proceeding down the opposite carriageway.
b) The niceties of language are often lost in translation.
c) The appellant described coming round the bend in evidence to explain the U-bend manoeuver.
No judge reasonably taking all these factors into account would have placed such weight on the mechanism of the accident.”
3. Mr McGowan argued that the appellant’s verbal and drawn versions of the alleged accident were reconcilable.
4. At something of a stretch, I find that they might be reconciled, but they are also certainly capable of being seen as discrepant. There was in my opinion no irrationality in the judge taking that view. The weight attached was for him, again within the bounds of reason, which were not exceeded.
The second ground.
5. The appellant says the judge went wrong in thinking that the appellant inconsistently described the rank of an officer as “sergeant” and as “captain”, because no correction of the interview record had been advanced.
6. This issue arises rather intricately from the interview record, the appellant’s subsequent discussion with his agents, and the interpretation at the hearing.
7. The appellant produced with his grounds evidence that the Farsi word “sarvan” or “sarvaan” (which might readily be misheard or misunderstood as “sergeant”) describes a rank equivalent in English to “captain”. Having heard the debate in detail, and having seen the evidence about ranks in Iran, I am satisfied that the judge may (understandably enough) have been led into identifying a discrepancy which is apparent but not real.
8. I take this as an error on a point of fact, the significance of which can be evaluated only in the overall context.
The third ground.
9. This runs as follows:
“It is unclear why the judge accepted coincidences can occur but stated that this coincidence stretched credibility.
Either the timing of his call and that the raid was coincidental or there was something within that coincidence which was beyond the realms of possibility – no such explanation by the judge has been given and therefore his findings are irrational.
Finally on this issue, the judge speculates without conclusion as to the “casual” nature of the search without recording the agent’s comments in response as to the absence of evidence as to timing and circumstances of the raid. His comments on “remarkably casual" are accordingly irrelevant and without conclusion.
The judge goes on to consider at paragraph 25 that he found the account of conversion incredible due to difficulty in accepting the timeline.
However the time line was open-ended and ran from end Tir to 2nd Mordad which could be anything from 3 days to 2 weeks. A careful reading of the paragraph from the substantive interview shows that the appellant has not been inconsistent.
The judge failed to comprehend or take into account the appellant’s statement of evidence where he clearly explains that the Home Office got it wrong to suggest the timeline of his coming to faith.
The judge ignored the appellant’s clear evidence that he would talk to his father’s friend, David, every time you went to the house but only about Christianity from the end of Tir (which ends on 22nd July) until 2nd Mordad (24th July).
The judge ignores the rest of the appellant’s evidence about converting to the faith and all his evidence about practising Christianity in the UK.
The appellant’s sur place activities are an essential part of the claim and cannot simply be dismissed as “manufacture of evidence to support an underlying claim which is simply a fabrication” (paragraph 25) without reference to what these fabricated pieces of evidence are.”
10. Mr McGowan submitted further to this ground as follows. There had been no background evidence about the layout of house churches in Iran, what might be displayed there, or how raids on them were carried out. There was an absence of reasoning for the judge’s finding that the account stretched credibility. There was no real inconsistency in the appellant’s accounts of how he came to convert and the time over which this took place. The judge thought the time was too short, but the appellant had explained how he had previously become disenchanted with Islam. Against that background, he might well have found a new faith immediately attractive. The dating show that the period might be more than a few days, even up to two weeks. The judge had not engaged with the appellant’s evidence about his rejection of Islam and reasons for conversion, nor with the evidence about his Christian participation in the UK.
11. The submission by Mrs O’Brien was along the following lines. The appellant had given somewhat varying dates, but in any event the judge’s point was based not on the discrepancy but on the startling speed with which the conversion took place. That was a view open to him, neither perverse not irrational. The judge was entitled to take the view that worship in a house church would be carried on discreetly in Iran, and that a raid on one would be a relatively high level event, not carried out casually. According to the appellant’s description it was an event of some significance, leading to multiple arrests. Although some of those arrested had allegedly been close to the appellant, he had shown no interest in their further fate. The appellant’s account involved the coincidence of an accident which prevented him attending at the church service and a telephone call to intimate his absence which went unanswered but left the line open so that he was able to overhear that a raid was taking place. The description of the accident involved discrepancies which entitled the judge to form the view that it was an invented part of a tail. That could be taken together with the sheer unlikelihood of becoming aware of the raid over an open telephone line. The grounds as a whole were only disagreement with conclusions the judge was entitled to reach and for which he had given legally adequate reasons.
12. Mr McGowan in response said that the shortness of the period involved could not be a good reason on its own for finding that the appellant was not a genuine convert. Taking out the judge’s erroneous reasons, the appellant might well have been accepted as such. Even if the judge had disbelieved that he converted in Iran, he might have found that he had become a genuine Christian in the UK. The judge failed to consider that issue.
13. The third ground is vague in parts, and includes several points. I do not find any of them to carry great force or to disclose error on a point of law.
14. The judge correctly directed himself about assessing credibility at paragraph 10, and expressly accepted that coincidences do occur at paragraph 17.
15. The judge thought that to allow a suspect during a raid on a house church to retain a mobile phone would be remarkably casual, and that became one of his reasons for the overall rejection of the account. There is no lack of sense in that. It did not require presentation of detailed evidence of police methods in Iran.
16. The judge did not overlook the appellant’s Christian practice in the UK. At paragraph 24 he noted the evidence and said that it was doubtless given in good faith, which is as far as such evidence could by itself ever take the appellant.
17. The judge also noted in that paragraph that although the appellant said he was invited to his church in the UK by someone he knew from his home town in Iran there was no evidence from that person and so it was difficult to give that claim much weight. That is only a small part of the reasoning, but it has not been subjected to any criticism.
18. The judge did say, very clearly, what parts of the evidence he found to have been fabricated, and he explained why.
19. As a whole, the grounds show no more than one slip, made on a point of fact and clarified only by evidence not available at the time. The rest of the grounds resolve into no more than insistence and disagreement.
20. The decision is not shown to be less than a legally sound explanation to the appellant of why he failed to establish that the facts were as he contended.
21. The decision of the FtT shall stand.
22. No anonymity direction has been requested or made.

Upper Tribunal Judge Macleman
1 March 2017