The High Court has granted a mother and her minor daughter leave to seek judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision that upheld a recommendation against granting them refugee status. The court found substantial grounds to challenge the decision, but did not quash it or determine whether either applicant qualifies as a refugee.
The challenge concerns the Tribunal’s decision of 31 July 2008. The applicants argued that the Tribunal failed to consider adequately the mother’s claimed fear of rape in Liberia, did not properly take account of her personal circumstances, and failed to assess the daughter’s claim separately.
The mother’s account, as summarised in the Tribunal decision, included fleeing Liberia during the civil war and later living in Côte d’Ivoire with a second husband. She said she had been raped in Liberia and beaten by her husband, and feared he would kill her and her daughter if they returned. The Tribunal rejected the asylum claim, citing concerns about aspects of her account and concluding that she had not established a well-founded fear of persecution on a Convention ground.
The High Court found substantial grounds to argue that the Tribunal had either failed to consider, or had not adequately considered, the mother’s claimed risk of rape in Liberia. The court also allowed her to challenge whether her personal circumstances—including the past harm she described and her physical and mental condition—were considered in that context under the relevant protection regulations.
The court did not find substantial grounds under the separate argument that her circumstances relating to the end of the war, lack of family support in Liberia, or hardship there required refugee status. It said the regulation’s provision concerning compelling reasons arising from past persecution did not create a new entitlement to refugee status.
The daughter was 13 when the asylum application was made. The respondents argued that her circumstances had been considered alongside her mother’s, and that no independent claim had been advanced. The court found substantial grounds to argue that the daughter’s claim should have been considered separately, noting that the applicants had different countries of origin and therefore potentially different legal positions.
The ruling grants leave to apply for judicial review only. The judge said the precise form of the order remained to be settled with counsel, with reference to the applicants’ proposed grounds.