The High Court has set aside a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing refugee status to a Pakistani woman and directed that her appeal be reconsidered by a different Tribunal member.
In a judgment delivered on 17 September 2015, Mr Justice Eagar found that the Tribunal had not properly and fully considered country of origin information about the enforcement of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and the treatment of Ahmadis. The case was heard as a combined leave application and substantive judicial review, and the court granted leave and quashed the Tribunal decision.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as Q.H., is an Ahmadi Muslim from Pakistan. She came to Ireland with her daughter in 2011 and made an unsuccessful asylum application. The Tribunal had affirmed the recommendation to refuse refugee status, finding that the discrimination she described did not amount to persecution and that she could relocate within Pakistan to live with family.
Q.H. challenged that decision on several grounds, including that the Tribunal had wrongly assessed her past treatment, her religious activities and her risk on return. Her counsel argued that the Tribunal had applied an unlawful “exceptionality” test to Ahmadis, failed to give proper weight to country reports and had not adequately assessed internal relocation. The respondents defended the decision, arguing that the Tribunal had considered the available information and was entitled to conclude that her experiences did not establish a risk of persecution.
The court said the Tribunal’s decision lacked any real reference to relevant country information, including reports submitted by the applicant that could support her account of persecution and discrimination. It also found the internal relocation assessment inadequate, noting that the country information identified Punjab as an area where Ahmadis had been particularly persecuted.
The judgment did not determine whether Q.H. qualified for refugee status. It set aside the Tribunal’s decision and ordered the appeal to be reconsidered by a different member.