The High Court has refused a judicial review challenge brought by a Pakistani family against a decision of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal that upheld recommendations against granting them refugee status. The court found no material error of law or breach of natural or constitutional justice and declined to quash the tribunal’s determination.
The case was heard by Mr Justice Robert Eagar, who delivered judgment on 10 December 2014. The applicants sought an order quashing the tribunal’s decision and sending their appeals back for fresh determination by a different tribunal member.
The first applicant, identified as S.Q., said he had converted from Sunni Islam to the Ahmadi faith in Pakistan in May 2007. He alleged that relatives beat and threatened him and his wife, briefly took their children from school, and threatened harm if he did not reconvert. He said the family fled Pakistan in June 2007 and feared persecution if returned. These were his claims; the tribunal rejected their credibility.
The tribunal cited what it considered gaps in the first applicant’s knowledge of the Ahmadi faith, inconsistencies between his account and his wife’s, and doubts about the family’s journey to Ireland. It also referred to the applicant’s education, the speed of his conversion and his failure, in the tribunal’s view, to learn more about the faith. The tribunal concluded that he had not shown past persecution or a real risk of persecution on return.
For the applicants, counsel argued that the tribunal had not properly considered supporting documents and explanations, including a public notice said to have been placed by the first applicant’s father disinheriting him because of his religious conversion. Counsel also argued that the spouses should have been given an opportunity to address contradictions in their evidence, and that aspects of the tribunal’s reasoning relied on conjecture.
The respondents defended the tribunal’s decision. The High Court said the judicial review was not an opportunity for the court to substitute its own view of the applicants’ credibility for that of the decision-maker. It found the tribunal had made coherent credibility findings and that its determination was legally sound. The court refused the relief sought; it did not itself decide the applicants’ refugee claims afresh.