MM (Eritrea) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

This is a renewed application for permission to appeal. The determination which is the subject of the application was made by Immigration Judge Holmes, who heard the appeal in December 2007. It concerns Ms MM, who claims to be a citizen of Eritrea, and I say ‘claims to be’ because it is quite clear from the determination and reasons of the Immigration Judge that there is no certainty as to quite what her origin is.

Her claim for asylum was rejected basically on the grounds of her incredibility. That finding is attacked on two bases. The first is that the judge made an impermissible conclusion as to what her knowledge would have been as to the status in relation to conscription of a married woman, which she claimed to be, in Eritrea, it clearly being the case that a woman who is married is not liable to conscription there and that is accepted. And the second basis on which it is attacked is that he made criticisms of her ignorance of the Pentecostal religion, which she claimed to have become a member of, having been converted, she said, in May 2004.

I remind myself that this is an appeal on issues of law rather than of fact, and the judge’s approach to credibility was essential a factual approach. Unless he acted perversely or took into account matters in respect to which there is no evidence, there is no basis for this court to interfere with his determination. But so far as conscription is concerned, the point which is criticised is that she appears to have been wholly unaware of a married woman’s exemption from national service. It is said that there is no evidence of that being widely known, but I have to say that it seems to me that that was a perfectly permissible inference to be made by the judge. If there is such an exemption one would certainly expect anyone who was subject to conscription, particularly someone who was unwillingly subject to conscription, to know of it.

So far as her evidence as to religion is concerned, I accept that she answered a number of questions correctly but on the core beliefs of her religion she was remarkably ignorant.

The judge’s findings as to incredibility did not rest solely on those matters. There was the fact that she had come to this country on false documents, travelling from the Sudan to the United Kingdom via the United Arab Emirates, and had failed to deliver up any travel document, whether a ticket, boarding card or anything when she came to this country, and did not then claim asylum but entered here deceptively. The failure to deliver up a travel document, the Immigration Judge was entitled to infer, was in order to deceive immigration authorities as to where she had come from.

Lastly it is said that there was no evidence to justify a finding that if returned to Eritrea she would not be at risk as somebody liable to conscription, but her own case was that she was married and, as the immigration judge found, as a married woman would not be liable to conscription.

He was, on all the evidence before him, entitled to reject her account of what had happened to her and her allegations of risk. In my judgment these are not matters of law but disagreements with his findings of fact. It was a careful decision of the Immigration Judge and I therefore will refuse leave.