Gurung, R (on the application of) v Immigration Appeal Tribunal

1. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: This is an application by Mr Rajendra Gurung for permission to appeal against the refusal by Lindsay J on 20th February 2004 of his application to apply for permission for judicial review of a decision of the Immigration Appeal Tribunal on 20th April 2003 when they refused his application for permission to appeal against a decision of an adjudicator on 17th February 2003. The adjudicator had dismissed his appeal against a decision by the Secretary of State on 6th September 2002 in which he refused the asylum claim.

2. This case has the same features as many cases involving people from Nepal which have come before this court over the last 12 months. The adjudicator found that the appellant was a substantially untruthful and unreliable witness, evasive and unreliable, and the Immigration Appeal Tribunal refused permission to appeal because this was a matter which went to credibility and the adjudicator had good reasons in the judgment of the Tribunal for not finding the appellant reliable.

3. The application for judicial review was made a little out of time. Solicitors were blamed, but the grounds for judicial review did not address the serious difficulty which the Immigration Appeal Tribunal had pointed out: that the adjudicator did not believe what the appellant had said.

4. Richards J, who has great experience in this class of case, rejected the application on paper on 16th October 2003. He said that the application was out of time, but, in any event, the claim was unarguable and the appeal would have no real prospect of success.

5. The appellant exercised his right to apply to a High Court judge in court. Again, and this is a feature of these cases, the appellant did not attend before the High Court judge, and Lindsay J refused permission. Even though the appellant had not attended before the judge, he sought permission to appeal to this court out of time and with the same formula of words which I have seen many times in these cases involving people from Nepal. The standard form of words is: "1. All my documentary evidence are not properly considered.

2. All my relevant laws are not taken into account. 3. My country situation is not taken into account." I have made it completely clear that these are not proper grounds of appeal.

6. The matter has been listed for hearing before me today. The appellant does not appear before the court. I consider that this application represents an abuse of the process of the court. It is totally without merit for the grounds very clearly set out by Richards J when he refused the application on paper and it is therefore dismissed.

7. Order: Application dismissed.