The High Court has refused a mother and daughter’s application for judicial review of a decision rejecting their international protection appeal. Mr Justice Max Barrett said the tribunal’s consideration of country information and its assessment of the mother’s credibility did not provide a basis for the reliefs sought.
The applicants, identified in the judgment as X and Y, are a woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and her minor daughter. The mother arrived in Ireland in June 2014 and applied for asylum. After earlier proceedings under the previous system, her claim was handled under the International Protection Act 2015 and its transitional provisions. The daughter was included in the protection claim in 2018.
The International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) heard the mother’s appeal in August 2018 and refused it the following month. It rejected her credibility. The mother had also argued that, if returned to the DRC, she and her daughter faced detention and interrogation as failed asylum seekers, potentially amounting to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.
The High Court considered a complaint that the IPAT had referred to criticism by courts in England and Wales of some country-of-origin information (COI) relied on by the applicants. Justice Barrett said the tribunal had not simply adopted the reasoning of those foreign courts. It had considered other material, acknowledged information supporting the applicants’ fears and concluded, based on what it described as probative and reliable first-hand sources, that the risk was confined to politically active people. The judgment noted that the tribunal said it had fully considered all the information and documentation, and that no evidence had been provided to show otherwise.
The judge said that mentioning the English court decision, which had not been raised at the tribunal hearing, might have been better avoided. However, viewed as a whole, the tribunal’s decision was not fatally flawed. He said the applicants had received fairness, reasonableness and rationality in the hearing and decision.
The court also rejected the challenge to the tribunal’s reconsideration of the mother’s credibility. The judicial review argument relied on an earlier asylum decision that appeared to have treated her as credible, although the judgment said that was never expressly stated. Justice Barrett found that the later appeal was a de novo process under the 2015 Act, at which oral evidence was given and credibility could be assessed afresh. The applicants had not objected at the time to the scope of the issues revisited.
The judicial review proceedings had been started 10 days late. The Minister’s counsel did not press the lateness point, and the court proceeded to judgment without formally ruling on an extension of time. It declined the reliefs sought. The judgment does not state that the court itself made a removal or deportation order.