Tankisi v Secretary of State for the Home Department

J U D G M E N T

Tuesday, 12th April 2005

1. LORD JUSTICE CARNWATH: This is an application for permission to appeal to this court from the decision of the Immigration Appeal Tribunal notified on 12th September 2004 upholding a decision of the adjudicator on 27th January 2003.

2. The applicant is a Turkish citizen who came to this country in June 1999. He applied for asylum which was refused. His basic claim was that his family were sympathisers of the PKK who had been subject to harassment by the Turkish police and that he himself had been detained on three occasions and maltreated. The adjudicator dismissed the appeal applying the guidelines which were then in place which were in a decision called Polat v Secretary of State [2002] UKIAT 04332.

3. By the time the matter came to the IAT Polat was no longer the relevant up-to-date guidance. Indeed, that decision had in fact been quashed by this court for a different reason which related to the failure to consider new evidence. However, the IAT, as I said, reached the same conclusion. They referred to the adjudicator's reliance on Polat and the fact that that has been superseded by further country guidance cases, but they say:

"... on the current understanding of the situation we find his conclusion correct."

4. The nub of the point is set out in the following two paragraphs:

"22. The appellant's history makes clear there is no personal interest in this appellant. His only detentions have been about a school incident, a demonstration where he was only one of very many arrested or about his brother. None of these indicate an interest in him.

"23. He remained at home for a year after the last of these and there is no suggestion of further interest in him by the authorities. That incident was now some 6 years ago. His parents and 3 siblings remain in Turkey and there is no evidence of their having problems."

5. They then go on to deal with the possibility of risk upon arrival at the airport, but Mr Collins accepts that that is not really the crucial point in this case.

6. Mr Collins says that they have not set out what they understood the relevant guidance to be other than simply referring to the "current understanding of the situation". However he has been unable to point to any aspect of the relevant guidance at the time of their decision which they have failed to apply properly. When the matter came before Sedley LJ on the papers he ordered it be renewed in open court on notice. The principal reason was that there had subsequently been the IAT decision in IK [2004] UKIAT 00312, which provides updated country guidance. Sedley LJ thought it appropriate to give an opportunity for the matter to be reviewed in the light of that.

7. However it seems to me, as indeed I put to Mr Collins, that the findings of fact to which I have referred in this case would have been sufficient to support the IAT's decision under any of the relevant guidance which has been promulgated in this difficult area over the last two years. Accordingly I see no grounds on which this court would be likely to allow an appeal.

8. Another point raised by Sedley LJ was the lack of any adequate explanation for the delay in lodging an application for permission to appeal. This was a matter of some two weeks. It is explained in a witness statement from the solicitor on the basis of difficulties in obtaining Legal Aid. However, as this is not a case where permission to appeal be appropriate, it is unnecessary to say anything about the delay point. Accordingly this application is dismissed.

ORDER: application dismissed; legal aid assessment.