Case No. UKUT-00627(IAC)

) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2007] EWCA Civ 770, [2007] 1 WLR 2891. Buxton LJ, giving the judgment of the Court, stated at paragraph 12: “The Administrative Court is really a wholly unsuitable tribunal for that purpose. Country guidance cases have a special status, failure to attend properly to them being recognised by this court as an error of law even though country guidance cases deal only with fact: see R (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2005] Imm AR 535, para 27. They have that special status because they are produced by a specialist court, after what at least should be a review of all of the available material. And that in particular involves a judicial input from a background of experience, not least experience in assessing evidence about country conditions, that is not available to such judges as sit in the Administrative Court and in this court. A judge hearing a judicial review application will therefore wish to tread carefully before finding that a country guidance case is unreliable just on the basis of one or two subsequent reports. The parties appearing before him will in particular wish to ensure that he is aware of any decisions in the AIT subsequent to the country guidance case in which that case has been considered.” 10. Nevertheless, in P Phillips J expressly considered the guidance given in Madan ([30]-[31]) and took great care to emphasise that he understood his findings as being of an interim nature, until the Tribunal produced a new country guidance case ([55]). He took care to note (only as one factor) that the previous country guidance case was 6 years old ([31]) and that it did not address the issue of criminal deportees ([44]). He also attached particular importance to the fact that the respondent in her decision letter on the other case dealt with in the same proceedings (that of R) had stated that persons who were criminal deportees “may” be at risk on return ([44]-[45]). Further, notwithstanding his cautious approach, he took particular care to set out what his findings of fact were and the body of evidence on which they were based. These findings were not obiter, they were the central basis for his decision granting judicial review. 11. Viewed in this context we consider that it was entirely justified for the First tier Tribunal judge, albeit a judge in a specialist jurisdiction assessing a decision by a non-specialist judge dealing not with legality but with the merits, to attach significant weight to such findings. Whilst relatively rare, and always to be essayed with caution (see