The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing refugee status to an anonymised applicant from the Democratic Republic of Congo, finding material errors in parts of the Tribunal’s credibility assessment. The case was heard as a telescoped judicial review, and the court remitted it to a different Tribunal Member.
The applicant said he was detained and ill-treated in the DRC after helping a cousin who wanted to leave the FDLR. He claimed he was held in prison, received hospital treatment and later escaped with help from a contact. The Tribunal had rejected his appeal primarily on credibility grounds.
Justice Faherty found that the Tribunal’s account of a medical report prepared by SPIRASI was incomplete. The report described physical findings, including elbow scars and restricted shoulder movement, as well as depression, anxiety and features of PTSD. The Tribunal referred to an appendectomy scar and mental health findings but did not address the other physical findings or explain what weight it gave the report. The judge said this left no basis to be satisfied that the medical evidence had been fully considered and weighed.
The court also found that the Tribunal should have addressed the applicant’s explanation for receiving hospital care while detained. He had said in his questionnaire that authorities arranged treatment because they thought he might provide information about the FDLR. The Tribunal had questioned why authorities would provide treatment if they intended to execute him or leave him to die in prison. The judge held that the explanation was not so implausible that it could be ignored, and that it could have affected the credibility assessment of his core claim.
Other challenges did not succeed. The judge found no merit in the arguments that the Tribunal had failed to consider why the applicant helped his cousin or told a neighbour, and said the error over whether a client-friend paid $2,000 or $3,000 was not material. A separate finding that the applicant’s accounts of friendship were inconsistent was erroneous, but was not enough on its own to undermine the decision.
The court also ruled that the Tribunal had wrongly relied on section 11(B)(b) of the Refugee Act 1996 in assessing credibility. That provision applied where an applicant claimed Ireland was the first safe country encountered after leaving their country of origin; no such claim was made here. The judge said the applicant’s two-day delay in seeking protection had also been given unwarranted weight, given his explanation.
Justice Faherty formally granted leave, quashed the Tribunal’s decision and directed that the matter be reconsidered by a different Tribunal Member. The court did not itself decide the applicant’s refugee claim.