The High Court refused O. S. leave to seek judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision upholding a recommendation that he should not be declared a refugee. The court extended the time for bringing the proceedings, which had started outside the statutory 14-day period, but found no substantial grounds for the proposed challenge.
O. S. claimed to be an Iranian national of Kurdish ethnicity. He said he had helped his father transport goods, including propaganda for the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, across the Iran-Iraq border. He claimed that on 8 January 2006, officers arrested his father while they were crossing the border and later searched the family home. He said he fled because he feared arrest, imprisonment, torture or death.
He arrived in Ireland on 8 February 2006 and applied for asylum. The Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner recommended against recognising him as a refugee after finding his account lacked credibility. The Refugee Appeals Tribunal dismissed his appeal in October 2006, citing inconsistencies and rejecting his evidence that he was from Iran.
The judicial review application challenged the Tribunal’s treatment of his credibility and its reliance on information about Iranian identity cards that a Tribunal member had encountered at a London conference. At the oral appeal hearing, the member questioned O. S. about his shenasnameh, an Iranian birth certificate that also serves as an identity card. She gave him two weeks to make written submissions. His representatives requested the conference materials and said they would not submit representations until those were disclosed; no written submissions followed.
The High Court said the Tribunal member was entitled to draw negative credibility conclusions from discrepancies about the frequency of border crossings, the number of times O. S. and his father had been stopped, and the card’s photograph and stamps. The judge described the Tribunal decision as comprehensive, rational and reasonable, and said the proposed grounds did not establish that its credibility assessment should be set aside.
The judge also rejected the complaint about undisclosed conference materials. O. S. had been given an opportunity to respond to questions about the identity card, and the court found no right to see materials from a conference simply because a decision-maker had drawn on knowledge acquired there. The judge said decision-makers could rely on objective knowledge gained through their work and training.
The court was satisfied there was good and sufficient reason to extend time, noting that the respondents had not objected. It nevertheless concluded that substantial grounds had not been established and refused leave. The ruling decided whether the proposed judicial review could proceed; it did not grant leave or quash the Tribunal’s decision.