The High Court has refused an application for judicial review challenging a decision that a woman from Cameroon should not be declared a refugee. The court declined to set aside the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s decision, which was the limit of the proceedings before it; it did not decide the asylum claim afresh.
The applicant said she fled Cameroon after a village chief tried to force her to marry him, with help from her uncle. She alleged that her uncle beat and raped her after she refused. She also feared that marriage would expose her to human sacrifice. These were her claims, not findings made by the court.
The Tribunal recommended in December 2003 that she should not be declared a refugee, concluding that her account lacked credibility. She sought judicial review on grounds that the Tribunal had failed to assess her credibility against country information about forced marriage and had reached an irrational conclusion without evidence. The respondents argued that the Tribunal had properly assessed the material and that its decision was reasonable.
Mr Justice John MacMenamin found that material before the Tribunal included information that a marriage without the free consent of both spouses was void, as well as information on sexual violence and early marriage in Cameroon. He concluded that the Tribunal had material on which it could find that forced marriage was unlawful. He also observed that the Tribunal’s treatment of the prevalence of forced marriage and enforcement of the law could have been clearer.
The court considered the applicant’s account in light of the country information and the respondents’ submissions about inconsistencies. These included differences in accounts of who wanted the marriage, the claimed family status and the applicant’s movements, alongside questions raised about documents submitted to the Tribunal. The judge said the court was not rejecting every part of the applicant’s testimony, but found that the issues, considered together, remained unanswered and concerned central matters relating to her claimed reason for flight and fear.
The judge held that the applicant had not shown an error in the Tribunal’s decision-making process serious enough to justify judicial review. The application was therefore refused.