The High Court has rejected a Congolese woman’s judicial review challenge to the Minister for Justice and Equality’s refusal to let her make a fresh application for refugee status. The court refused the relief sought, leaving the Minister’s decision in place.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as M.K., challenged a refusal made under section 17(7) of the Refugee Act 1996. Her earlier asylum appeal had been rejected by the Refugee Appeals Tribunal in 2010, which found her account not credible. She later sought consent to make a further application, relying on an expanded medical report about scars that she said supported her account of past persecution.
The Minister refused consent in September 2011. The decision said the later report was based on a medical examination conducted in 2008 and that its contents could have been submitted with the original asylum claim.
The applicant argued that the Minister had not applied the statutory test introduced in 2011, which concerns new elements or findings that significantly increase the likelihood of refugee status and whether the applicant was, through no fault of her own, unable to present them earlier. She also argued that the Minister had not properly considered the expanded medical report.
Mr Justice Hanna rejected both grounds. He followed earlier High Court decisions holding that the amended statutory test was effectively identical to the earlier “acid test” applied by the Minister. The Minister’s failure to cite the new statutory provisions expressly did not, in the circumstances, make the refusal legally defective, the judge said.
The judge also considered the two medical reports. The later report elaborated on the doctor’s earlier description of the scars as highly consistent with the stated cause, including discussion of their dimensions and possible causes. The court found it was an amplification of the 2008 report, not new findings that made refugee status significantly more likely. It also found the information could have been provided earlier because both reports were based on the same examination.
The court concluded that the Minister had adequately considered the later report and that the conclusions were reasonably open to him. It rejected the second ground and dismissed the judicial review application. The judgment did not determine the underlying refugee claim afresh; it addressed the legality of the Minister’s refusal of consent to a subsequent application.