The High Court has dismissed a judicial review proceeding brought on behalf of two children challenging Refugee Appeals Tribunal decisions refusing their asylum applications. The court granted the respondents’ motion to dismiss after finding that the children had no stateable basis to challenge the decisions.
The children, both born in Ireland, had never been to Cameroon and had not personally experienced persecution there. Their asylum applications, made in September 2010, relied exclusively on fears put forward by their parents, as the parents had conceded at the appeals.
The mother said a man in Cameroon would kill the children because he did not want her to have children. The father said his past political activities could lead to the family being arrested if returned. The judgment records that the parents’ own asylum claims had been rejected on credibility grounds. The court considered the risks asserted for the children implausible and lacking objective justification, including because the father had a daughter in Cameroon and no harm to her had been suggested.
The respondents sought dismissal on the grounds that the statement of grounds did not identify specific legal flaws and that the proceeding was out of time. The court agreed that several grounds were too general to meet the requirements of the amended judicial review rules. It said, however, that it would otherwise have been inclined to allow an amended statement of grounds rather than deny access to judicial review on drafting grounds alone.
The court also rejected the respondents’ time-limit argument as a basis to dismiss the case at that stage. It held that the High Court could consider whether there was good and sufficient reason to extend the 14-day period, even if an extension had not been formally sought in the initiating documents.
Instead, the court dismissed the proceeding because it found the underlying challenge bound to fail. It was satisfied that the Tribunal’s appeal decision had been lawfully reached and was sound in substance. The judgment concerns the respondents’ motion to dismiss the judicial review proceeding; it does not grant the substantive relief sought by the applicants.