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Statement of reasons includes misrepresentation
The SOR produced for my client includes 2 cases of misrepresentation which can be verified as the hearing was recorded. I am preparing to appeal to the UT on an error of law but am not sure how to treat the misrepresentation - is it an error of law or an incorrectly recorded material fact? Any advice would be appreciated.
if the tribunal get a material fact wrong in the circumstances that you describe then that is an error of law. If the record of proceedings
is clear then without reasons being given for departing from what was said in evidence the reasons will be inadequate
Thanks - that’s clearer to me now.
See R(Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2005) CA., at para 30, where the court endorses the reasoning in a previous case by qouting the following with regard to unfairness following a mistake as to a material fact founding an error of law:
“(i) there must have been a mistake as to an existing fact, including a mistake as to the availability of evidence on a particular matter;
(ii) it must be possible to categorise the relevant fact or evidence as “established” in the sense that it was uncontentious and objectively verifiable;
(iii) the appellant (or his advisers) must not have been responsible for the mistake;
(iv) the mistake must have played a material (not necessarily decisive) part in the tribunal’s reasoning”.