The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing an anonymised applicant refugee status, finding that the tribunal did not clearly determine his claimed ethnicity or assess the risk he might face if returned to Sudan. The case was remitted for a fresh consideration.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Faherty on 6 September 2016, concerned a judicial review of the tribunal’s 27 July 2010 decision, which had upheld the Refugee Applications Commissioner’s recommendation that the applicant should not receive refugee status. The court heard the substantive application for certiorari, an order to quash that decision.
The applicant said he was Sudanese, from the Bergid tribe and of Darfuri origin. He claimed he had been arrested and tortured by Sudanese security forces in May 2008 after fighting between government forces and JEM in Omdurman, and escaped when an armed group attacked the police station. The tribunal rejected his account after identifying inconsistencies about his escape, travel to Ireland and statements reportedly made to Maltese authorities. Those credibility findings were not under review in this case.
The applicant argued that the tribunal’s decision left unclear whether it accepted his claimed ethnicity and background. The respondents maintained that the decision accepted his Sudanese nationality and ethnicity and clearly explained why his account of past events was disbelieved.
Justice Faherty found that the decision sufficiently showed the tribunal accepted the applicant was Sudanese, but did not make a clear finding on whether he was Bergid/Darfuri. Given the country information before the tribunal about the treatment of Darfuris, the court said that question needed to be resolved. It also said the tribunal was not necessarily required to make an express finding on whether the applicant had lived in Omdurman.
The court separately found that the tribunal had not conducted a forward-looking assessment of what might happen to the applicant if returned to Sudan. The rejected account of past persecution did not, by itself, remove the need to consider future risk where there was a basis to assess it. The court held that the applicant’s accepted Sudanese nationality, and the unresolved question of ethnicity, required that assessment. It did not decide whether he faced persecution in Sudan.
The court found the challenges on unclear ethnicity findings and the absence of a forward-looking assessment had been made out. It did not rule separately on the challenge alleging insufficient analysis, as it considered that issue subsumed by its other findings. It ordered certiorari and remitted the matter to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal for de novo consideration.