The High Court dismissed an Iraqi applicant’s substantive judicial review challenge to the refusal of subsidiary protection and refused leave to bring a challenge to a deportation order on the grounds advanced.
In a judgment dated 24 May 2012, Mr Justice Cooke addressed two separate proceedings concerning decisions made in July 2011. In case 2011 No. 783 J.R., the applicant had leave to challenge the 14 July refusal of subsidiary protection on the ground that he was entitled to a public hearing before an independent tribunal. The court dismissed that application, finding the ground had not been made out.
The applicant argued that the Minister’s conclusion that he would not face a real risk of serious harm on return to Iraq conflicted with country information describing violence there. His counsel submitted that an appeal with a public hearing was needed to resolve that factual dispute and that witnesses could give evidence about security conditions.
The judge held that the issue was the Minister’s assessment of general security conditions, rather than the applicant’s personal credibility. The Minister had to consider the best available information about Iraq in the first half of 2011, and the court found no obvious selective use of the sources cited. It also noted that the applicant and his advisers could have submitted updated material while the application was pending.
The court said an adverse assessment could be challenged by judicial review if it were irrational or did not follow from the material relied on, but it was not unlawful simply because it had been made without a public hearing. It also rejected the argument that Articles 47 and 51 of the EU Charter independently required a broader oral hearing for the follow-on subsidiary protection decision.
A separate proceeding, 2011 No. 762 J.R., included a request for leave to challenge the subsidiary protection refusal, the refusal of humanitarian leave to remain, and the deportation order dated 15 July 2011. The court said the applicant could not rely in that proceeding on its grounds to challenge the subsidiary protection refusal, because leave for that challenge had been granted in the separate case. The hearing in the 762 proceeding therefore concerned leave to challenge the other decisions.
In argument, the applicant focused on whether the Minister’s assessment of risk from violence in Iraq and the availability of state protection was adequate. The court reviewed the file note, including its discussion of the applicant’s personal claim, country information on Iraqi police and security forces, and the possibility of relocation within Iraq. It found the assessment was not inadequate or irrational and that the relevant issue under the prohibition on refoulement had been addressed. The court refused leave to challenge the deportation order on the grounds advanced. The judgment does not state the outcome of the request concerning humanitarian leave to remain.