General Principles at Hearings with Court Interpreters: TS (Interpreters) Eritrea [2019] UKUT 00352 (IAC)
by Katia Bianchini
Question(s) at stake
Whether the First-tier Tribunal's decision was affected by procedural unfairness as a result of (1) refusing to adjourn the hearing due to issues with the accuracy of the interpretation at the hearing and (2) failing to take into account post-hearing evidence; and (3) whether the First-tier Tribunal's decision was affected by an error of law as far as the assessment of the appellant's evidence was concerned.
Outcome of the ruling
The First-tier Tribunal's decision was affected by procedural unfairness as a result of (1) refusing to adjourn the hearing due to issues with the accuracy of the interpretation at the hearing and (2) failing to take into account post-hearing evidence. The issue of whether the First-tier Tribunal's decision was affected by an error of law concerning the assessment of the appellant's evidence was remitted to the First-tier Tribunal before a different judge and a different interpreter.
The Upper Tribunal also gave guidance by providing some general principles that must always be taken into consideration when court interpreters are involved.
Country:
Official citation
TS (interpreters) Eritrea [2019] UKUT 00352 (IAC)
Topic(s)
Keywords:
Asylum seeker Asylum procedures Refusal of asylum Applicant's credibility
Tag(s):
Bibliographic information
Access case report
View case report in the CUREDI databaseAbout the authors
Katia Bianchini (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Department Law and Anthropology, Germany)
Katia Bianchini is a Research Fellow of the Law and Anthropology Department of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. She holds a law degree from the University of Pavia (Italy), an LL.M. in Comparative Laws from the University of San Diego (California, USA), and a Ph.D. in Law from the University of York (UK). Her doctoral thesis provided an empirical and legal analysis of how the 1954 UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons is implemented in ten EU states. She has also worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (Göttingen). Before engaging in research, she practised immigration and refugee law for ten years in the UK and the USA.
Bianchini has published in the field of refugee law, statelessness, and the rule of law in the context of sea migration. Her current research builds on her expertise in human rights and Italian law and looks at the treatment of deceased sea migrants in the South of Italy.