The High Court has sent a rejected international protection appeal back to the same tribunal member to correct or clarify parts of the decision. The court did not quash the tribunal decision and did not decide that the applicant’s protection claim should succeed.
The case concerned F.A.R., a Bangladeshi national who claimed political persecution by the Awami League. The International Protection Appeals Tribunal rejected his appeal on 8 October 2018. He sought judicial review of that decision.
The court dismissed the challenge insofar as it relied on grounds alleging that the tribunal had failed to consider the risk raised by a charge sheet, and that it had engaged in conjecture. The judge said the tribunal had assessed risk by reference to the facts it accepted after rejecting the applicant’s account as not credible. Whether that credibility assessment was correct was a separate issue.
The judgment identified several errors or possible errors in the tribunal’s account of dates. These included the applicant’s arrival in Ireland, the date of the charge sheet, and the period he spent in the UK. The judge said the errors were not manifestly immaterial, though correcting them would not necessarily change the outcome.
The translated charge sheet submitted to the tribunal did not contain a date for the alleged incident. The applicant’s representative argued that the original document did contain one, but the judge said the tribunal had dealt with the translation actually submitted. The remittal gives the applicant an opportunity to provide an updated translation if he wishes.
The court also directed clarification of the tribunal’s internal relocation reasoning. The judge said it was not entirely clear whether the tribunal had assessed relocation separately from its rejection of the applicant’s account. If relocation is relied on as an independent reason for rejecting a claim, the tribunal must make clear that it has assumed the claimed future risk to be true for the purpose of that analysis.
The judicial review was dismissed on grounds 1 and 5. On the remaining grounds, the matter was remitted to the same tribunal member for appropriate corrections, clarifications and amendments. No further oral hearing is required unless the tribunal member decides otherwise. The applicant may submit an updated translation of the charge sheet within six weeks of the judgment.