The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting a Pakistani Ahmadi man’s asylum appeal, finding that the tribunal failed to assess whether he would face persecution if returned to Pakistan. It directed that his appeal be heard again by a different Tribunal Member.
The applicant sought judicial review of the tribunal’s negative recommendation, dated 24 June 2009. The court also granted an extension of time to bring the proceedings, accepting his explanation for a 16-day delay.
The tribunal accepted that the applicant was a member of the Ahmadi religious community. His account included an attack on a mosque he attended, prayer meetings at his home after the mosque closed, threats and assaults linked to a dispute with a tenant, and a later attack after he moved to Lahore and started an estate agency. He said he feared return to Pakistan and could not obtain state protection or safely relocate within the country.
The tribunal treated the tenant dispute as a private property matter and concluded that the applicant did not need international protection. The High Court found that this was an incomplete assessment. The dispute was only part of the account: other alleged experiences included religiously motivated harassment and assault, police inaction after learning he was Ahmadi, and an attack connected to his later business.
The court held that, after accepting the applicant’s Ahmadi identity, the tribunal had to consider the full account and whether he could access effective state protection on return. It had not done so, and had applied no forward-looking assessment of future risk. The court said that assessment could not be dismissed as irrelevant where the applicant was accepted as a member of a group facing harassment and discrimination that could amount to persecution.
The applicant also challenged the nearly 21-month interval between his appeal hearing and notification of the decision. The respondents said the Tribunal Member had dictated the decision within about three months, but the recording was mislaid. The court described the notification delay as highly unsatisfactory but did not decide whether it breached fair procedures or good administration, because it had already quashed the decision on other grounds. It noted that a similar delay could amount to a breach of good administration.