KG (Turkey) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department
[2022] EWCA Civ 1578
ASO (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department
3 November 2023
[2023] EWCA Civ 1282
Court of Appeal
A man from Iraq claimed asylum in the UK because of threats related to his girlfriend. Two lower courts said no, but the highest court said the lower courts made mistakes in how they judged his story, so they sent the case back to be looked at again correctly. The highest court thought there was a chance he was telling the truth and deserved asylum.
Key Facts
- •A, an Iraqi Kurd, claimed asylum in the UK after being rejected in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands.
- •A's claim centered on the risk of violence in Iraq due to his relationship with his girlfriend, S.
- •The First-tier Tribunal (F-tT) dismissed A's appeal, finding him not credible and reliable.
- •The Upper Tribunal (UT) also dismissed the appeal.
- •A's appeal to the Court of Appeal (CoA) focused on whether the F-tT's assessment was flawed and whether the UT was justified in its decision.
Legal Principles
Appellate courts must recognize the F-tT's special expertise and assume correct application of the law unless there's an express or implicit misdirection.
Court of Appeal
In asylum appeals, the appellant need only show a real risk of persecution or harm, not prove facts on the balance of probabilities.
Karanarkaran v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2000] 3 All ER 449
To determine materiality of errors, the test is whether any rational tribunal must have reached the same conclusion on the materials before the F-tT.
Secretary of State for the Home Department v AJ (Angola) [2014] EWCA Civ 1636
Outcomes
The Court of Appeal allowed A's appeal.
The F-tT erred in law in its assessment of A's credibility, making material errors in its reasoning that impacted its overall conclusion. The UT failed to properly assess the F-tT's errors.
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