The High Court has refused an Iraqi national’s application for judicial review of a decision rejecting his asylum appeal, leaving that decision in place. The court examined whether the Refugee Appeals Tribunal had lawfully assessed his claim; it did not decide the claim afresh or determine whether he should be returned to Iraq.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as B. A. O. [Iraq], is a Kurd. He said he fled Iraq in autumn 2007 after his parents were killed when a grenade was thrown at their car as they returned from a market. He claimed the attack was revenge for his father’s former senior role in the Ba’ath party and that, as his son, he would face persecution if returned.
A negative recommendation was made on his asylum application in April 2008. The Refugee Appeals Tribunal rejected his appeal in July that year without an oral hearing. The Tribunal accepted that his parents had died in the attack but said the available evidence did not establish that they were targeted for his father’s political opinion. It also concluded that the applicant’s evidence did not meet the standard to show a reasonable likelihood of persecution on return.
The applicant obtained leave to seek judicial review on two grounds: that the Tribunal had failed to give proper weight to country information about attacks on former Ba’athists and their families, and that it should have given him the benefit of the doubt because it had made no adverse credibility finding. His representatives also argued that the Tribunal might not have considered an IRIN report sent to it in May 2008.
Justice Cooke said the High Court’s role was to review the legality and fairness of the decision-making process, not to decide whether the Tribunal reached the right answer on the merits. The judgment found that the Tribunal had not made a definitive finding that the grenade attack was random. Rather, it had reasoned that, amid widespread violence in Iraq and without independent evidence of targeting, it could not conclude that the attack was intended to kill the applicant’s father because of his political opinion.
The court also reviewed the country information, including the material sent in May 2008. It found that the information showed widespread violence and some attacks in which family members of former Ba’athist officials were killed, but did not compellingly establish that relatives as a group were being targeted in 2007–08. The court therefore held that the Tribunal’s forward-looking risk assessment was not irrational. It said the uncertainty over whether the parents’ attack was targeted or random did not determine the validity of the Tribunal’s decision.
The judicial review application was refused. The judgment did not grant the requested order quashing the Tribunal’s decision.