IMMIGRATION

The guidelines in Devaseelan v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] Imm AR 1 as to how a decision-maker in an asylum and human rights appeal should approach the findings of fact made by a previous decision-maker in the same case, is also applicable to cases involving different claimants where the claims involve materially overlapping evidence and arise out of the same factual matrix:

(i) the first adjudicator’s determination should always be the starting point;

(ii) facts personal to the claimant which were not brought to the first adjudicator’s attention should be treated with great circumspection;

(iii) if facts before the second adjudicator are not materially different from those put to the first adjudicator, and the claim was supported by essentially the same evidence, the second adjudicator should regard the issues as settled by the first adjudicator’s determination; and

(iv) the force of the reasoning underlying (ii) and (iii) is much reduced if there is a good reason why the claimant’s failure to adduce relevant evidence before the first adjudicator should not be held against him. Where the second appeal is by a different, albeit closely connected, party the second tribunal might be more readily persuaded that there was a good reason to revisit the earlier decision.