UK Social Security and Child Support Commissioners' Decisions

[1997] UKSSCSC CIS_4318_1998 (26 August 1999)


 


THE SOCIAL SECURITY COMMISSIONERS

Commissioner's Case no: CIS/4318/1998

SOCIAL SECURITY ACTS 1992 - 1998

APPEAL FROM A DECISION OF A SOCIAL SECURITY APPEAL TRIBUNAL

ON A QUESTION OF LAW

DECISION OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY COMMISSIONER

Mr Commissioner David Williams

DECISION OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY COMMISSIONER

1. I allow the claimant's appeal against the decision of the Sutton social security appeal tribunal on 23 June 1998. It was brought by leave of the chairman. The tribunal's decision was that the claimant's appeal failed because the claimant did not claim asylum on arrival in the United Kingdom. For the reasons given below, that decision is erroneous in law. I substitute for that decision my own decision which is at paragraph 2.
2. My decision is that :

The claimant submitted her claim for asylum on her arrival in the United Kingdom on 28 January 1997 from a country outside the Common Travel Area. Her claim for income support made on 22 August 1997 is referred to the adjudication officer to decide on this basis.

3. The claimant is a national of Burundi who arrived at London Gatwick Airport on 28 January 1997 from Tanzania. She claimed income support on the usual claim form, datestamped as received on 22 August 1997. Her claim was refused by the adjudication officer and that decision was confirmed by the tribunal as noted. The claimant's representative appeals from that decision on the ground that the tribunal had not properly considered the decisions of Commissioners on the meaning of "on arrival".
4. The claimant was diagnosed some time ago as having a number of serious medical conditions. The appeal was for a time stayed pending the appeal to the Court of Appeal against a number of decisions of Commissioners dealing with the meaning of "on arrival". Those appeals have now been withdrawn. The decision had also already been delayed because an earlier decision by a social security appeal tribunal on the appeal was set aside at the invitation of the chairman of that tribunal by a set-aside tribunal which that chairman chaired. The decision under appeal was that of the tribunal undertaking the rehearing. A direction expediting the appeal was made. I give this case priority over other cases because of these delays and the medical conditions. I am therefore not staying it pending further decisions by Commissioners.

The issue in dispute

5. The question to be decided is whether the tribunal rightly interpreted and applied the test in regulation 70(3A) of the Income Support (General) Regulations 1987, namely whether the claimant submitted on her arrival in the United Kingdom a claim for asylum to the Secretary of State. There is no question of reentry, and no question of European law arises in this case. This is a mixed question of fact and law, on which there have been a number of decisions by Commissioners. The written submissions to the tribunal drew attention to decision CIS/143/1996. Subsequently, decisions CIS/2719/1997 and CIS/3231/1997 have been added to the papers by the adjudication officer together with the caution that at that time the first of those decisions was under appeal to the Court of Appeal. The claimant's representative then commented also on CIS/1137/1997 and CIS/4117/1997. These have also been added to the appeal papers.

The decision under appeal

6. The tribunal's decision is unclear about how the tribunal viewed the evidence.

The tribunal summarised the events as follows in its record:

The appellant went through Immigration Control at Gatwick airport without claiming asylum. She said that she was travelling with an Indian man to whom she had given US$700, that he had given her a false South African passport and that he told her that he would say he was interpreting for her at Immigration control. He said that he would ask her the question asked by the Immigration Officer and she would answer as though he was interpreting but he would given an answer that would make it be all right. They were allowed through Immigration Control and the Indian man disappeared with the false passport. The Appellant waited for an hour but then was asked what she was doing and was introduced to a man from the Third World Refugee Bureau. These people asked the Appellant many questions about how she came to be where she was and she was able to answer in English ...

The Appellant says that she went back with the Representative of the Third World Refugee Bureau and tried to claim asylum at immigration Control a couple of hours late but they would not accept her claim so she went to Lunar House in Croydon.

The key paragraph of its reasons is:

The Tribunal considered that since the Appellant had gone through Immigration Control without claiming asylum she had not claimed asylum on arrival as required by regulation 70(3A)(a). Even claiming 2 hours later at the airport would not have been claiming "on arrival" even if the claim had been admitted. Her claim at Lunar House was therefore not made on arrival.

7. On these facts, and noting only CIS/143/1997, the tribunal decided that the claim was made at Lunar House and not at the airport. In so doing it dismissed evidence that the claimant had attempted to claim asylum at the airport, and arguably contradicted one of its own findings. Given the importance of this issue, and the ambiguous way in which the tribunal set out its views on these key findings, I agree that the decision is inadequate and is to be set aside. I do not intend for the purposes of allowing the appeal to analyse further the arguments supporting and challenging the decision of the tribunal .

The facts of this case

8. So far, this case has been argued on the basis that the claim was made at Lunar House some hours after the claimant left Gatwick airport. If that was when the claim was made, I would agree that as a matter of law the claimant had not claimed "on arrival". But in my view the wrong approach has been taken of the facts in this case.

I think it is clear that the claimant did claim asylum, in so far as she could, at the airport. The later attendance at Lunar House does not detract from that. The claimant's account of events was rehearsed before the tribunal and I note that in general terms (and despite some scepticism recorded as being expressed by the presenting officer) it was largely accepted in terms of the facts of her arrival and what followed. In particular, the tribunal, as already noted, did not consider if on the claimant's version of the facts she had claimed at the airport. The appeal papers contain a statement from the member of the Third World Refugee Bureau who met and spoke to the claimant at the airport, and I accept that evidence. This confirms that the claimant was seen by the member of the Bureau as stated, and that he took her case to "the immigration" at the airport. It adds further details including the statement that the claimant did not know she was in Britain until after the man with the passports disappeared and her lack of knowledge of asylum law. They do not affect the application of the law, but in my view they assist in assessing the credibility of the claimant's evidence.

9. Although the point has been made that the claimant might have arrived in Britain some other way, there was no specific evidence before the tribunal, or in the appeal papers, suggesting that the claimant was lying or that there was independent evidence that her story was not true. Of course, she had no documentation with her, so she could not produce a passport with the relevant stamp in it. But that is entirely consistent with her story and is not of itself incredible. Other evidence indicates that she had never travelled abroad before, that her knowledge of English was limited, that she was ill, tired and confused and that it was before dawn when she arrived, suggesting an overnight flight. Noting the comment of the presenting officer at the tribunal, I do not consider that doubt is cast on this story because she did not know what airline she was travelling with. There is no evidence that she was ever given the ticket or other travel documents. The evidence is that she came from Burundi, which is in the French-speaking part of Africa. Again, the evidence is that she thought she was going to either France or Belgium. Given her likely linguistic background, and the history of Burundi as a former Belgian colony, those were probably more likely destinations for someone like the claimant than Britain. For the purposes of this decision, I accept the core of what she said about arriving in Britain (as the tribunal appears to have done) and I also accept that, before leaving the airport she tried to claim asylum with the aid of the member of the Third World Refugee Bureau.

Did the claimant claim asylum at the airport?

10. I am satisfied that she did. In particular, there was no suggestion that the claimant had moved far from where the "Indian man" left her, presumably at the arrivals area of the relevant terminal in Gatwick airport. The evidence suggests that she had no luggage and no local currency and that she waited there an hour or so before some unidentified person intervened. There is no evidence whether that person had any official status, but that person put her in touch with the member of the Refugee Bureau. As recorded by the tribunal, her evidence was then that he questioned her then "we went back to immigration desk - they talked and talked and he said they couldn't help you but we will go somewhere else." The phrase "submit a claim" in my view covers what happened in this case. I do not take it as requiring the whole process to be gone through, or particular forms filled in. I am satisfied on the evidence that the fact that the claimant wanted to be treated as an asylum seeker was made clear to immigration officials at the airport, after she had been through immigration control but before she had left the arrivals area.

Was the claim "on arrival"?

11. Looking to the facts behind the various appeals so far decided, I note that in CIS/143/1997 the claimant arrived at Heathrow airport on a Friday, and claimed asylum on the following Monday at Lunar House in Croydon. The Commissioner's decision on the facts was that the claimant did not submit a claim on her arrival. In CIS/2719/1997, the claimant arrived at Heathrow airport, left the airport and went to a house in London where she was given some money, and went to Lunar House to claim asylum that day but some hours later. The Commissioner decided that the tribunal had not erred in law in finding that this was not a claim "on arrival." In CIS/3231/1997, the claimant was "put out of a lorry in the Edgeware Road in London" on a Sunday afternoon or evening. The claimant and his brother first approached officials (although not the right officials) in Cardiff the following day, and a claim for asylum was made three days after that. The tribunal found that the claim for asylum was made on arrival, but the Commissioner found this to be in error of law, and himself found on the facts that the claimant did not claim on arrival. In CIS/1137/1997, the claimant arrived at Heathrow airport with his mother, and claimed asylum at Lunar House the following day. A tribunal by a majority decided that the claimant had not claimed asylum on arrival. The Commissioner referred the decision for rehearing because it was in error of law. He directed the new tribunal to consider in particular what steps had been taken to make a claim before the claimant left the airport. Finally, in CIS/4117/1997 the claimant arrived in Heathrow airport on a Friday, and claimed asylum at Lunar House the following Monday. Evidence in that case suggested that the claimant had had "assistance" from an agent, but this was not fully explored by the tribunal in finding that the claimant did not claim on arrival. The Commissioner, rejecting the argument that "on arrival" includes "as soon as practicable after arrival", dismissed the claimant's appeal.
12. In each of these cases, save possibly CIS/1137/1997, the claim for asylum had been made not at the airport but some time later after the claimant had left the airport to go somewhere else. I agree entirely with the approach taken by Mr Commissioner Rowland in CIS/4117/1997 that in a case like this "on arrival" does not mean "as soon as practicable after arrival". But I also take the view that none of those cases deal directly with a set of facts such as occurred here. In this case, the claimant had done nothing except walk from the aeroplane through the arrivals facilities to wait in the arrivals area, when the process leading to her making a claim at the airport was started. Most of that time consisted of about an hour when she did, apparently, precisely nothing. I do not think waiting as such changed what happened - as any seasoned traveller knows, a great deal of waiting occurs at airports. She then spoke to someone who may or may not have had an official role at the airport, and the process leading to her claim started. Given that when the process started she neither knew she was in Britain nor apparently what asylum meant, it would have been somewhat irresponsible for the Bureau member to make a claim for her without questioning her first. On these facts, the decision is poised between the case of the claimant who gets through immigration control but then asks a customs officer or a policeman for help (which, it would appear from CIS/2719/1997, (paragraph 11) is related to arrival) and the case of the claimant who walks out of the door of the airport and then claims.
13. My conclusion on these facts is that the claimant did make her claim "on arrival in the United Kingdom". The Commissioner noted in CIS/4117/1997 (at paragraph 22) that immigration officers have power under the provisions of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971 to reconsider decisions within 24 hours. I note also that their powers are to examine people who "have arrived in the United Kingdom" (Schedule 2, paragraph 2(1)). This clearly gives them some of the flexibility discussed in that case and in the decision in CIS/2719/1997. The present claimant was well within any such powers. The evidence is that the officers discussed the claim but decided to do nothing about it. Had they taken the opposite decision and accepted the claim when it was made, or had they chosen to investigate and postponed deciding for that reasons, I doubt that the adjudication officer would now be submitting that that was not done "on arrival". I therefore allow the appeal, and my formal decision is in paragraph 2.

David Williams

Commissioner

26 August 1999