England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
(MR BEATSON QC)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Monday, 30th April 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE RIX: This is an application for permission to appeal from the decision of Mr Beatson QC sitting as a deputy high court judge. He had to consider an application for judicial review of two decisions; one was the Special Adjudicator's decision to refuse an adjournment and the other was the IAT's decision to refuse permission to appeal from that decision. I have carefully read all the papers before me and the detailed and careful determination and reasons of the Special Adjudicator and the careful judgment of Mr Beatson.
2. This morning Mr Kadri QC, on behalf of the applicant, submits that his primary point is a very short one in a situation where the credibility of the applicant was involved as the critical issue. He submits that the application for an adjournment in order to obtain a medical report on the applicant's psychological condition should have been granted. He submits that the Special Adjudicator did not cite in her reasons for refusing the adjournment the relevant rule, which is that the adjournment must be necessary for the just, timely and effective conduct of the proceedings, and that her reasons indicate that she was mostly concerned simply with the late hour of the request and administrative convenience.
3. In my judgment, however, it is impossible to think that the Special Adjudicator did not have the rule in mind or that she failed in any event to bear in mind that the critical aspect of the rule for the purposes of this application was the interests of justice and in effect the fairness of the procedure.
4. In my judgment, for the reasons given by Mr Beatson, the Special Adjudicator's decision, which is essentially a question of discretion, cannot be said to be unreasonable or perverse or even arguably so. The Special Adjudicator was entitled to take into account the lateness of the request. She was entitled to take into account the appearance of the applicant as he appeared to her on that occasion and the coherency of his responses to which he refers. She was also entitled to take into account in general, since the allegation was one of torture and beating and involved scars being pointed to, the absence of any medical evidence as to the applicant's physical condition.
5. In this connection it is important to bear in mind, as the letter of 15th September 1999 first requesting the adjournment makes clear, that the application was made on the basis that the request was for a psychological report, not a report on the applicant's physical condition. The Special Adjudicator returns to the absence of medical evidence in the context of the applicant's physical condition at the bottom of the seventh page of her reasons.
6. The test for these purposes is the one laid down in R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Al-Mehdawi [1990] 1 AC 876, which, as Mr Beatson himself also remarked, was on its facts a much stronger case of prejudice to the applicant than this would be on the allegations before the Court. The Court is therefore concerned with the fairness of the procedural decision, and in my judgment for the reasons given by Mr Beatson it cannot arguably be said to be unreasonable on the part of the Special Adjudicator to reject the application for an adjournment.
7. Mr Kadri's alternative submission was that the Special Adjudicator was unreasonable in finding against the credibility of the applicant. Those are matters which the Special Adjudicator went into very carefully, as did Mr Beatson in his judgment. In my judgment, Mr Beatson was quite justified to say that there was no arguable unreasonableness in the Special Adjudicator's decision.
8. Mr Kadri has in particular drawn my attention to the discounting of the brother's evidence referred to on the eighth page of the Special Adjudicator's reasons, where she says that she can give it no weight. She correctly considered what weight she could give to the evidence, and it is impossible to say that she was unreasonable or perverse in giving that hearsay evidence no weight at all.
9. In general on the question of credibility, I am entirely satisfied by the judgment of Mr Beatson that the Special Adjudicator had properly taken matters into account and her judgment cannot be said to be unreasonable.
10. For the purposes of this judgment I have given the papers careful attention and borne in mind the importance of this application for the applicant as an asylum-seeker. Nevertheless, for the reasons which I have sought to explain, I am bound to say that this application must fail.
(Application for permission to appeal dismissed; legal aid assessment)