The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting a Zimbabwean woman’s claim for refugee status and ordered a fresh hearing before a different tribunal member.
In a judgment delivered on 10 July 2015, Ms Justice Faherty found that the tribunal’s assessment of the applicant’s core claims was flawed. The applicant alleged that she was displaced by Operation Murambatsvina, later raped by men she believed were associated with Zanu PF, and threatened with forced marriage. Those were allegations, not findings by the High Court.
The tribunal had rejected her appeal on credibility grounds. Among its reasons were inconsistencies about who owned the farm where her father worked, her account of returning to Chegutu in March 2009, and her explanation of travelling through Frankfurt without knowing she was in Germany.
The High Court held that the tribunal placed undue weight on discrepancies over farm ownership. The applicant’s questionnaire described her father as working on the farm and named another person as its owner. In the court’s view, that issue was peripheral to her central allegations of rape and a forced-marriage threat, set against her claimed displacement.
The court upheld three other credibility findings as open to the tribunal on the evidence: the applicant’s difficulty recalling how long her father worked on the farm; her omission from the questionnaire of her return to Chegutu and further alleged harassment; and her account of not knowing she had passed through Germany. The court nevertheless said the travel issue was peripheral and could not by itself support rejecting the claim.
The judgment also found that relevant country-of-origin information had been placed before the tribunal, including material about displacement, political violence, rape, forced marriage and the police response. The tribunal’s decision said the information did not assist because the applicant’s credibility was lacking, but did not explain how her account had been assessed against that material. The High Court concluded that the information could have affected the credibility assessment and should have been addressed.
The court did not decide whether the applicant was a refugee or whether her allegations were true. It granted an order of certiorari quashing the tribunal decision and remitted the matter for a de novo hearing before a different tribunal member.