The High Court has refused a Botswana woman’s application for judicial review of an International Protection Appeals Tribunal decision denying her refugee and subsidiary protection declarations.
In a judgment delivered on 5 November 2024, Ms Justice Miriam O’Regan found that the applicant had not shown an error of law or process in the Tribunal’s decision. The ruling concerned the lawfulness of that decision; it was not a fresh determination of her protection claim.
The applicant had said she feared men who, according to her account, had attacked her grandparents and were seeking information about her late grandfather’s dealings. She said the men sexually assaulted her twice. The Tribunal accepted that she was a Botswana national and that her account was internally consistent, but found her overall credibility lacking and rejected on the balance of probabilities her account that her grandfather had been murdered and her grandmother seriously assaulted. It also rejected the claimed connection between those events and the alleged rapes.
The applicant argued that the Tribunal’s assessment was irrational and relied on speculation, gave insufficient weight to a psychologist’s letter and her consistent account, and wrongly failed to apply the benefit of the doubt. She also argued that the decision should have addressed the alleged rapes as a core part of her claim.
Justice O’Regan held that the Tribunal could consider the lack of detail about the attackers and their motive, the family’s responses to the reported assault and alleged murder, and whether the account was plausible in light of the available country information. The court said credibility had to be assessed in the round and that the weight given to the psychologist’s letter was for the decision maker. The letter described anxiety, low mood and difficulty sleeping, but did not make findings of fact.
The judge also concluded that, given the adverse credibility findings and the basis on which the applicant had expressed her fear of return, the Tribunal was not required to assess the alleged rapes in isolation. The court rejected the argument that a recent judgment had changed the approach to deciding the core elements of a protection claim. It also found the complaint about the Tribunal’s treatment of section 28(6) insufficient to invalidate the decision.
The application for judicial review was refused. The judgment did not grant protection status or make a new finding on the truth of the underlying allegations.