The High Court has granted an asylum applicant leave to seek judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision, identifying two grounds for the challenge. The court did not determine the substantive review or decide the applicant’s refugee claim.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as F. T., claims to be Eritrean. She applied for asylum in Ireland in February 2006, alleging that Eritrean authorities arrested and ill-treated her before she escaped to Ireland. The Refugee Applications Commissioner found her account not credible and recommended that she not be declared a refugee. The Tribunal affirmed that recommendation on 9 June 2008, citing, among other things, the limited detail she gave about her alleged detention and treatment.
On appeal, the applicant submitted additional medical material, including a SPIRASI medico-legal report. The report described psychological difficulties and scars, including marks that the examining physician said would be consistent with cigarette burns. The physician’s professional opinion was that the applicant’s symptoms and examination findings were consistent with her account of alleged ill-treatment. The Tribunal member considered the medical and psychological reports but said they did not conclusively establish what had physically happened, and assessed them in the context of the applicant’s testimony.
The first ground on which the High Court granted leave concerns the Tribunal member’s approach to that medical evidence. The court stated that the conclusions on credibility and the medical evidence were alleged to be unreasonable and irrational.
The second ground concerns submissions and country of origin information about the applicant’s asserted fear of persecution if returned as a failed asylum seeker. The judgment recounts that reports submitted on her behalf described risks to Eritreans forcibly returned from abroad. It also notes that a UK Home Office guidance note, apparently before the Tribunal member, contained information at odds with some of those reports. The court was concerned that the Tribunal decision did not refer to the applicant’s submissions or the reports, raising the possibility that they had not been considered.
The court granted leave on the basis that the Tribunal member may have breached fair procedures by failing to assess directly relevant submissions and country of origin information. The ruling permits the judicial review to proceed on those two grounds; it does not find that the Tribunal’s decision was unlawful or set it aside.