The High Court has refused leave for an anonymised applicant to pursue a judicial review challenging the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s decision to uphold a recommendation that he be refused refugee status.
In a judgment delivered on 2 July 2009, Ms Justice Mary Irvine said the applicant had not shown the “substantial grounds” required at the leave stage under section 5 of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000. The court did not grant leave; it did not conduct a substantive judicial review or quash the Tribunal’s decision.
The applicant said he was a member of the Berti tribe and had lived in Serba, Darfur, Sudan, all his life. He claimed to have fled after fearing persecution and an attack by Janjaweed militia. The Refugee Applications Commissioner recommended refusing refugee status in July 2007, and the Tribunal affirmed that recommendation in November 2007.
The applicant argued that the Tribunal’s credibility assessment was unfair and overlooked supporting evidence, including his knowledge of Sudanese geography and reports of fighting in Serba. He also challenged the weight placed on his lack of identity and travel documents, his questionnaire answer giving his nationality as “Arab”, and the Tribunal’s assessment of his account of travel to Ireland. He said the Tribunal had not adequately addressed country information relevant to internal relocation.
The respondents argued that the central issue was whether the applicant had established that he was from Serba and belonged to the Berti tribe. They said the Tribunal had considered the evidence and that the High Court should not replace its credibility assessment with its own.
Justice Irvine held that the adverse credibility findings rested on several factors the Tribunal was entitled to consider: the absence of identity or travel documents, the questionnaire answer, the applicant’s estimate of Serba’s population, his account of an attack on government buildings by Janjaweed militia, and the Tribunal member’s concerns about his travel account. The judge said the record did not show that the Tribunal had ignored the applicant’s evidence about geography, travel routes or fighting in Serba.
The judgment noted two errors raised by the applicant. The Tribunal report referred to him hiding in a village called Zorbe, although “zaribe” meant an agricultural building; the judge considered this error insufficiently significant to undermine the decision. The judge also described the Tribunal member’s phrase that the travel account “defies belief” as unfortunate, saying it would have been preferable to specify the basis for that view. She found, however, that the travel assessment was peripheral to the central credibility finding.
The court concluded that substantial grounds had not been established and refused leave. The Tribunal’s refusal of refugee status therefore remained in place.