The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting a Somali man’s refugee claim, finding that the Tribunal did not clearly determine whether he belonged to the Ashraf or Benadiri minority grouping.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice M. H. Clark on 1 November 2012, orders the matter to be reconsidered by a different Tribunal member. The court ruled on one of three grounds for which the applicant had been given leave to seek judicial review. It did not consider the other two grounds.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as A. M. S. J. [SOMALIA] [No. 2], had challenged the Tribunal’s 25 February 2011 negative recommendation on his refugee claim. The judgment recounts that he claimed to be Ashraf, part of the Benadiri minority, and said he had suffered persecution in Somalia. Those allegations were not accepted by the asylum authorities, whose credibility findings focused on his account of past persecution and his journey to Ireland.
The court did not decide that the applicant was Ashraf or Benadiri. It rejected his argument that a reference in the Tribunal decision to Ashraf people being found in internally displaced persons camps in northern Somalia proved that the Tribunal had accepted his claimed ethnicity. But the judge found the decision’s reasoning unclear on whether the applicant was Ashraf or Benadiri, or whether the Tribunal had considered the issue at all.
That distinction mattered, the court said, because a decision-maker must assess future risk using the parts of an applicant’s account that are accepted. In this case, the Tribunal’s focus on the applicant’s past-persecution narrative did not resolve whether he belonged to a minority group that country information described as vulnerable to persecution. The court said rejecting an account of past events did not, by itself, answer the separate question of future risk if the applicant’s origins or group identity were accepted.
The judgment also noted that the applicant’s appeal submissions had cited a report concerning Benadiri customs and genealogical descent, but that point was not addressed at the oral hearing. The court said a clear finding on the core elements of the claim was also important for any later protection process, including a possible subsidiary protection application.
The court granted certiorari, quashing the Tribunal decision and remitting the matter to another Tribunal member for fresh consideration. It made no finding on the applicant’s ethnic identity or ultimate entitlement to protection.