The High Court has refused an application for judicial review by a Pakistani national challenging the refusal of his application for refugee status. The applicant had asked the court to quash a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision affirming the earlier refusal.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Mac Eochaidh on 31 July 2015, records that the applicant said he feared his former brother-in-law after divorcing the man’s sister. He claimed that men had threatened him at his mother’s home in Pakistan and said he had sought police help. His accounts of why the police did not assist him differed across his asylum documents and interview.
The Refugee Applications Commissioner found that the applicant had not established a well-founded fear of persecution, that the claim did not fall within a Refugee Convention ground, and that state protection and internal relocation were available. The Commissioner also made adverse credibility findings about the applicant’s asylum-seeking history and concluded that he was not entitled to an oral appeal because he had not applied as soon as reasonably practicable after arriving in Ireland.
The Tribunal affirmed the refusal. In the High Court, the applicant argued that the Tribunal made new adverse credibility findings on a papers-only appeal without giving him an opportunity to respond. His counsel also challenged the Tribunal’s treatment of delays in seeking asylum, country information and internal relocation. The respondents argued that the findings were based on inconsistencies in the applicant’s own statements, which he had signed, and that the Tribunal had taken sufficient care.
The judge rejected the fair-procedures challenge. He held that when credibility findings are based on statements an applicant personally made during the asylum process, the Tribunal is not required to put each perceived inconsistency or implausibility to the applicant before making a decision. The judgment says an applicant has an opportunity to address such issues in a written appeal, including a papers-only appeal. It distinguishes that situation from reliance on material unknown to the applicant, such as country information contradicting the applicant’s account.
The court accepted the respondents’ position that country-of-origin conditions and internal-relocation principles did not need to be addressed after the Tribunal had rejected the applicant’s credibility and the existence of a well-founded fear with a Convention connection. It said any flaw in the internal-relocation finding would be severable from the rest of the decision.
The respondents also opposed an extension of time, noting that proceedings were issued out of time and that no explanation for the delay had been given. The court said it had no jurisdiction to extend time without a stated good and sufficient reason, but left for another case whether that reason must be given by affidavit. It refused the judicial review on substantive grounds.