Immigration

Review procedure - provision of incompetent interpreter - procedural error triggering chief adjudicator's jurisdiction to reviewR (Gashi) v Chief Immigration Adjudicator (Secretary of State for the Home Department, interested party): QBD (Judge Wilkie):17 August 2001An application for asylum was refused on the grounds that the applicant had not shown a well-founded fear of persecution.He appealed to the special adjudicator, who refused the appeal on the grounds that he had lacked credibility since his evidence was inconsistent.

The applicant then applied to the chief adjudicator under rule 16 of the Immigration and Asylum Appeals (Procedure) Rules 2000 (SI 2000/2333) on the grounds that he had been provided with an incompetent interpreter before the special adjudicator and that this coupled with the failure of the special adjudicator to adjourn the proceedings was a procedural error within the terms of rule 16 that triggered the power of the chief adjudicator to review the decision.The chief adjudicator refused jurisdiction on the grounds that the provision of an incompetent interpreter was a matter of substance and was not a procedural error.Reginald Arkhurst (instructed by Dina Rawal, Immigration Advisory Service) for the applicant: Julie Anderson (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the home secretary.Held, granting the application for judicial review of the chief adjudicator's decision, that the provision of an incompetent interpreter was a procedural error, and since the question of competence was relevant to the decision of the special adjudicator the matter fell within the scope of rule 16 of the Immigration and Asylum Appeals (Procedure) Rules 2000; that the chief adjudicator had erred in declining jurisdiction, and since he had specialist knowledge of such cases and since Parliament intended that those cases should be carefully scrutinised the matter should be remitted to him for consideration.