Asylum Insights
Service 04 · Oral TestimonyExpert oral testimony in asylum hearings
Attendance to give and defend expert evidence, in person or by video link, in any of the forums we work in. An expert who cannot hold the report up under cross-examination should not have signed it.
- Attendance
- In person or video link
- Notice preferred
- Two weeks or more
- Includes
- Pre-hearing conference
What the instruction produces
Pre-hearing conference with counsel
Identifying the two or three points the presenting officer or trial attorney is most likely to press, and agreeing how far the expert can properly go on each.
Review of material served since the report
New country information, a supplementary refusal, or a competing expert report — addressed before the hearing rather than in the witness box.
Clarity about the limits of the opinion
Concessions identified in advance. An expert who concedes a fair point early retains credibility on the points that matter.
Availability for tribunal questions
Including where the tribunal, rather than either party, is driving the questioning — common where the expert is single joint or tribunal-appointed.
Cross-examination is where weak reports are exposed
Most successful challenges to expert evidence are not about the country at all. They are about method: whether the expert read the full bundle, whether a source says what the report claims, whether the expert has been to the country recently, whether the opinion strays into matters reserved to the tribunal, and whether the expert has ever produced a report adverse to the party instructing them. A report written with those questions in mind reads differently from one written to persuade, and it is the reason we insist on stating limits in the report itself.
Related instructions
Send the decision letter and the hearing date. We will confirm scope and fee before doing anything else.
If a different instruction would serve you better, we will say so.
Every enquiry is confidential. Nothing is shared with immigration authorities or any government body.