Commentary

The specifics of this judgment will be of interest to country experts in immigration, asylum and deportation cases. Notwithstanding the rejection of the country expert’s report by the First-tier Tribunal (FTT), what the judgment reveals is how a country expert can usefully describe their expertise and set out facts and opinions so as to assist the court. It is not about having particular qualifications – “an expert's expertise needs to be considered in the light of their experience as a whole”. Not unusually the expert, who was from the USA, prepared his first report without regard to the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Rules 2014 (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/663c9ff64d8bb7378fb6c446/consolidated_FtT_IAC_Rules.pdf ) This also happened recently where a retired US judge was called as an expert on an aspect of US law.

Learning points

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