The appellant accepted that he had not been charged with the offence and that there was no evidence of the existence of an arrest warrant. Counsel for the appellant provided the Authority with a helpful Memorandum of Submissions. The Authority will generally not act on concessions made to the potential detriment of an appellant s case, without having made its own investigations. Not all Counsel are as skilful, thorough and experienced as Mr Ryken. But the underlying principle must be that in refugee law the facts are of such critical importance that the Authority has itself a supraditional independent duty to determine the existing and prospective factual matrix of circumstances which constitute contemporary country information.
Matters can change very fast.
The accepted or proven facts in one decision may have a limited longevity. Precedent factual assessments cannot be simply transplanted from one case to another without a reassessment of the current factual status and the attendant persecution risk analysis. However, the Authority itself is wholly satisfied that the concession made is fair and accurate. Indeed the appellant did not dispute the Authority s own information that the Russian Federation now treats ship-desertion as insignificant . The vigorous Communism of the past that may have treated ship-desertion as a manifestation of treason, is long since obsolescent.