The High Court refused an anonymised applicant leave to seek judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision upholding the recommendation that he not be declared a refugee. The ruling, delivered by Ms Justice Dunne on 4 December 2009, concerned the leave application only; the court did not grant the requested order quashing the Tribunal’s decision.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as A.G.E.R.B., said he was from Kurunji in south Darfur and belonged to the Bergid tribe. He claimed that Janjaweed attacks in 2006 had killed his mother, displaced him and separated him from his wife and children. He also said his brother-in-law was killed after men entered his in-laws’ house. These were his claims; the Tribunal had found his account not credible.
His challenge argued that the Tribunal had made adverse credibility findings without regard to evidence, failed to weigh relevant material, relied on peripheral matters or conjecture, and did not assess whether he faced persecution if returned to Sudan. His submissions also contested the Tribunal’s treatment of his knowledge of attacks near Umshagirah, his family search, his account of the raid, his knowledge of Sheiria and displaced-persons camps, and his lack of identity or travel documents.
Justice Dunne found no basis to impugn the Tribunal’s credibility assessment. She said the court should assess the legality of the decision-making process, not replace the Tribunal’s credibility judgment with its own. The judgment noted that any confusion in the applicant’s evidence about whether his brother or father-in-law had been killed was clarified before the Tribunal and was not shown to have formed an adverse credibility finding.
The applicant also alleged an error concerning the villages of Nyala and the assessment of attacks near Umshagirah. The judge was not satisfied that a factual error had been established. Even assuming one had occurred, she held it did not render the decision irrational. She considered the credibility findings to reflect an objective appraisal of the relevant evidence and information, without an identified breach of applicable law or natural or constitutional justice.
On future risk, the judge rejected the submission that the decision-makers had expressed no doubt about the applicant’s ethnicity. Given the finding that his personal account was not credible and that there was no evidence of past persecution, she concluded the Tribunal was not obliged to apply a forward-looking test based on that account. The applicant had to show substantial, arguable grounds for judicial review; the court found he had not done so and refused leave.