The High Court refused an application for leave to pursue judicial review of a decision refusing an anonymised applicant subsidiary protection status. The court held that the International Protection Appeals Tribunal had addressed the central issue in the applicant’s account: whether his parents and siblings were caught up in a bombing in Maiduguri in 2011.
The tribunal had refused subsidiary protection on 31 January 2017, notifying the applicant on 6 February. The applicant sought leave to challenge that decision. In oral submissions, he argued that the tribunal had made no finding on whether it accepted that his parents and a sibling were killed in a bomb attack at a market in Maiduguri on 26 June 2011.
The judge rejected the argument that the tribunal had simply deferred to an earlier decision by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC). She pointed to the tribunal’s treatment of country-of-origin information confirming an attack at the market. The tribunal had regarded that information as corroborating the applicant’s account and enhancing his credibility. It also discounted an earlier adverse point about his failure to name a river in Maiduguri, saying the map relied on was indistinct and unofficial.
The judge found that the tribunal’s credibility conclusions dealt with the family deaths as part of the applicant’s wider account. The tribunal had said that his lack of detail about Maiduguri was significant because he claimed to have lived there for six years and to have experienced persecution through the loss of close family members. It said it appeared likely he had never lived there and that his account cast serious doubt on his claim to come from the area or to have suffered the persecution alleged. The judge concluded that the tribunal had specifically considered whether the family members were caught up in the bombing.
A proposed ground also said the tribunal should have commissioned a medical report, although the applicant had not produced one and was waiting for an assessment. The judge noted that this point had not been developed in written or oral submissions. She also referred to the tribunal’s statement that it was for the applicant to provide evidence for his case.
The ruling concerned leave to maintain judicial review proceedings. The court refused that application; it did not itself determine the applicant’s entitlement to subsidiary protection.