By Ruth Mercer
The High Court has quashed a decision refusing international protection to a Ghanaian man after finding that the International Protection Appeals Tribunal did not properly assess medical evidence concerning post-traumatic stress disorder and memory impairment.
The applicant, identified as G.K., claimed that he is bisexual and had suffered repeated assaults in Ghana because of his sexuality. His application for refugee status and subsidiary protection was rejected after the Tribunal found significant credibility problems in his account.
Those concerns included inconsistencies about family dates, where meetings with a male partner took place and aspects of the alleged assaults. The Tribunal also considered his conduct against country information showing hostility towards homosexuality and bisexuality in Ghana.
However, G.K. had supplied two clinical diagnoses of PTSD. One came from a doctor trained by Spirasi, the Irish Centre for the Care of Survivors of Torture, and another from a senior clinical psychologist who treated him over 20 appointments. The Spirasi assessment also recorded significant cognitive impairment and specifically addressed the effect trauma can have on memory and recall.
In a judgment delivered on 22 April 2026, Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty held that the Tribunal had referred to those reports but had not meaningfully engaged with their contents. It was not sufficient, she said, to discount them because the diagnoses depended significantly on the applicant's account or because one clinician had not followed the Spirasi methodology.
The judge also found that the Tribunal failed to address the identified memory difficulties when assessing inconsistencies in G.K.'s evidence. A letter from a local LGBTQ support group was also treated too narrowly, although the court regarded that as a less significant issue.
The Tribunal decision was quashed and the case will be reconsidered by a different Tribunal member. The High Court did not decide that G.K. is entitled to protection; credibility and the weight of the medical evidence remain for the new Tribunal determination.