Case No. UKUT-00453-(IAC)

v Home Secretary [2014] 1 WLR 2064 , i.e., that where a Sprakab Report expresses an opinion in terms of certainty or near certainty then little more is required to support a conclusion, underplayed the importance in any case of the Tribunal itself examining such a report critically. But the specific criticisms made by Mr Chelvan in this case of this report seem to me to be unfounded. The two analysts who reached their conclusion are well qualified and I give due deference to their opinion, whilst at the same time placing the report in context with the other evidence. I would not agree with Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal I A Lewis who said when remitting this case for a further hearing that the report is ‘near determinative’ but it does deserve significant weight. 57. The appellant has given evidence that the reason why she is not fluent in Tigrinya is because she was raised in an Amharic speaking environment. Her father was away working a lot and her mother died when she was only 2 years of age. On the other hand the appellant was, on her evidence, residing in Ethiopia only until the age of 8. She was residing in Sudan with her father for eight years until 2009 and has also spent time in Eritrea and married a man in Eritrea on 23 rd May 2010. I do not find her evidence that he was living in Ethiopia only until the age of 8 at all likely, given the findings in the Sprakab Report.” 24.We derive from the judge’s reasoning as set out in these paragraphs the following. We begin with a point not raised by Mr Manley, but important nonetheless. The judge clearly took cognisance of what Lord Carnwath had said in MN (Somalia) [2014] UKSC 30 and made sure to establish whether the judge had committed the same error as the Upper Tribunal was held to have done in that case of underplaying the importance in every case of the Tribunal examining the report critically, and not just reading off its conclusions if expressed as a near certainty. We note also that, unlike the report considered in MN, the report in this case was by identified linguists.25. We next observe that the judge gave specific attention to the appellant’s contention th at the report betrayed procedural bias. What the judge concluded in [55] was his response to the contention of the appellant’s representative at that hearing, Mr Chelvan , which he recorded at [54] as being that “the respondent had set out to prove that the appellant is from Ethiopia rather than help her establish her true nationality”. We consider the judge’s reasons for rejecting this contention was a sound one, and that the judge was right to consider that the authors of the report sought to establish the appellant’s linguistic characteristics with an open mind and did not see themselves as seeking to establish that the appellant is from Ethiopia. ( We would recall that for reasons given earlier we reject the notion implicit in the above argument that the burden of substantiation is not on the applicant, but depends on help from the respondent. ) 26. The third point w e would make is that we see no material error in the judge stating at [56] that “[t]he two analysts who reached their conclusions are well qualified and I give due deference to their opinion”. This assessment did not assert that both were well qualified in Tigrinya and Amharic and as a statement about their qualifications as set out in their CVs , it was not incorrect. It stood as a direct answer to the submission from Mr Chelvan , recorded at [39] that “the analysts were not suitably qualified to carry out the task” and at [54] that there was a “lack of any evidence of expertise in analysing either Amharic or Tigrinya in the second linguist’s CV”. Whilst the second analyst’s CV did not demonstrate any knowledge of Tigrinya or Amharic , the report sets out a description of its methodology noting that “[l]anguage analysis cases regional and local linguistic features in phonology, prosody, morphology, syntax and lexica… ” It states that “[i]f necessary, a second opinion is requested by one or more analysts” and adds: “ Every language analysis report is reviewed by two or more linguists to ensure the quality and contents. The language analysis in this report has been compiled by analysts in cooperation with Sprakab’s linguists. A Sprakab linguist bears the ultimate responsibility for the quality and content of the language analysis.” 27.It is also confirms in respect of the report on the appellant that the “Examination/analysis [was] carried out by expert analysis working under the supervising umbrella of expert linguists.”28.To our satisfaction the above makes clear: (i) that the expertise of language analysis goes beyond linguistic expertise in a particular language/languages (and includes, for example, knowledge of phonology, morphology, syntax, lexica); (ii) that whilst the analysts may include more than one linguist it is only necessary for there to be one linguist (and a “second opinion” can be requested by one or more analyst); (iii) it is the linguist who bears the ultimate responsibility for the quality and contents of the language analysis; and (iv) that in addition to the input of the analysts, Sprakab ensures that its analysts work under the supervising umbrella of expert linguists.29.Seen in this context, the second linguist involved in the report on the appellant may not have possessed any knowledge of Tigrinya or Amharic, but he was a linguist whose qualification included basic, intermediate and specialised and advanced courses in linguistics and a basic and intermediate course in computational linguistics. Given that the report’s methodology accorded ultimate responsibility to the first analyst, linguist Catharina Karlhager, who did have specific expertise in Amharic, Tigrinya and Oromo, we see nothing untoward about the involvement of one analyst who did not.30.As regards the contents of the report, the assessment made was that it was very likely that the appellant’s linguistic background was Ethiopian as she demonstrated that she had “mastered Amharic to the level of mother tongue speaker”, that the variety of Amharic she spoke was one found in Ethiopia and that “[h]er speech did not display any feature of Tigrinya which can be expected among Eritreans”. In reaching these conclusions the analysts were clearly aware that the appellant had stated, inter alia, that she had been born in Assab in Eritrea of Eritrean parents but lived in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia for seven years. They clearly reached their conclusions after a specific analysis of linguistic level, phonology, morphology and syntax and lexica (the last three with specific examples from her speech). It is also clear that the analysts reached the view they did notwithstanding that on the section on knowledge assessment the appellant was only noted to have lacked knowledge about Eritrea on one matter: “two ports (she mentioned Dahlak which is not a port but an island)”. Given that their report was a linguistic analysis, it would have been odd if they had treated the mixed conclusions of the knowledge section as determinative in any event.31.In short, we reject the appellant’s contention that the Sprakab report was flawed and the concomitant contention that the judge fell into error by placing reliance on it.32.For the above reasons we conclude:33.The First-tier Tribunal Judge did not materially err in law.34.His decision to dismiss the appellant’s appeal must stand.