The High Court has refused three Iraqi family members’ applications to challenge decisions rejecting their asylum claims, declining both to extend the filing time and to grant leave for judicial review.
In a judgment delivered on 21 August 2014, Mr Justice McDermott considered separate proceedings brought by parents S.S.F. and H.H.A. and their son Q.S.S., who was a minor when his proceedings began. The family had arrived in Ireland in September 2006. They claimed they faced persecution in Iraq because they were Shia Muslims and because their son K. had worked as an interpreter for the United States Army.
The parents also relied on threatening letters ordering the family to leave their area, alleged threats connected to K.’s work, and their medical conditions. Q.S.S. described bullying and assaults at school, as well as attacks and killings he said he witnessed. These were claims made in the asylum proceedings, not findings by the High Court.
The Refugee Appeals Tribunal rejected the claims, finding the applicants’ accounts not credible and concluding that relocation within Baghdad was an option. The parents challenged their decisions, arguing in part that the Tribunal had failed to consider evidence of K.’s work for US forces. The High Court was satisfied that the documents about his service had been considered and held that the Tribunal was entitled to assess the evidence as a whole. It also accepted that the Tribunal could give little weight to a later threatening letter because of inconsistencies about how documents had been found and sent from Iraq.
The judge noted that the Tribunal had misstated that the letters did not mention K.’s work: the third letter did refer to it. But the letter was received after the family left Iraq, and the court found the Tribunal was entitled to discount it for the stated provenance concerns. The court also considered differences in the parents’ accounts of a grenade incident and rejected the argument that religious persecution had not been considered.
In Q.S.S.’s case, the judge said the Tribunal’s view that it was difficult to believe he continued attending school for three years despite violence was subjective and somewhat speculative, particularly because it relied on no evidence about schools’ continued operation in Baghdad. However, the judge held that this did not make the overall decision so unreasonable or irrational as to invalidate it. The court also found no sufficient basis to challenge other aspects of the Tribunal’s decision, including its credibility assessment and use of country information.
The son’s challenge was filed 19 days after the statutory 14-day period. The parents’ challenges were also out of time. The court found no good and sufficient reason to extend time in any of the cases and refused the applications. It did not grant asylum or determine that the family’s claims were true. The judgment notes that the applicants retained the right to apply for subsidiary protection and humanitarian leave to remain in Ireland.