The High Court quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision that had affirmed a recommendation against recognising a Pakistani applicant as a refugee, finding that some credibility assessments had no rational basis. It ordered the applicant’s appeal to be reconsidered by a different tribunal member.
Mr Justice Eagar’s judgment, delivered on 27 March 2015, concerned a judicial review of the tribunal’s decision of 30 March 2011. The applicant sought certiorari, an order quashing that decision, and a fresh determination of his appeal.
The applicant said he was a Sunni Muslim from Pakistan who had fled after his Ahmadi girlfriend was killed. He suspected her family, who he said had opposed their relationship and had accused him of kidnapping her. He also said he feared they could find him elsewhere in Pakistan. These were his claims; the court did not determine whether they were true.
The tribunal had rejected his account on several credibility grounds, including his explanation of travel to Ireland without a passport, the alleged kidnapping complaint, his relationship and his girlfriend’s contact with people in her home area, the circumstances of her death, his inability to recall the date, and his finances. It concluded that the combined inconsistencies meant he had not established general credibility.
On judicial review, the court treated the travel concern as peripheral and said little weight should be attached to it. It found the tribunal’s reasons concerning the alleged kidnapping complaint intelligible and substantial, but considered it unreasonable to fault the applicant for not providing documents without addressing whether they could have been obtained. The court accepted the reasoning on his father intervening with the girlfriend’s family and on the applicant’s failure to remember when she died. But it found irrational the conclusion that she would not have maintained contact with someone in her home area, and said the tribunal had speculated in assuming her family’s intended target was the applicant rather than his girlfriend.
The court held that some of the challenged findings lacked a rational basis. Because those findings formed part of a wider, cumulative credibility assessment, it could not tell whether they had materially affected the overall decision. It therefore quashed the tribunal decision and sent the appeal back for determination by a different tribunal member. The judgment did not grant refugee status or decide the appeal afresh.