The High Court has rejected an application by an anonymised asylum applicant for a certificate allowing an appeal to the Supreme Court. The application concerned a judgment refusing leave to seek judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision.
The underlying tribunal decision, issued on 16 September 2008, affirmed a negative recommendation on the applicant’s asylum claim. It referred in several places to the applicant as a national of the Democratic Republic of Congo, although he was a national of the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville). The earlier High Court judgment also considered an exceptional delay between the tribunal appeal hearing and its decision. On 15 October 2010, the court held that neither matter provided a substantial ground for granting leave to seek judicial review.
The applicant sought a certificate under section 5(3)(a) of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000, proposing two questions: whether a High Court judge may decline to follow an earlier High Court judgment in a judicial review leave application, and whether an incorrect country-of-origin reference in a tribunal decision makes it invalid for error on the face of the record.
Counsel for the applicant argued that the earlier judgment had departed from judicial comity by not following an unreported 2001 High Court judgment involving confusion between the two Congo states. The judge said the application appeared to misunderstand the earlier ruling. He said the court had intended to distinguish the cases on their facts, not reject the legal approach in the earlier judgment. In the present case, the country was correctly named in several places and the underlying background information had been addressed correctly. The judge described the problem as an error of fact, which would amount to an error of law only if material to the validity of the jurisdiction exercised.
On the proposed country-of-origin question, the judge accepted that identifying the country can be vital to an asylum determination. He said the primary consideration is the source of persecution claimed, rather than the formal state title. In this case, the court considered the inconsistent references to result from poor drafting and lack of proofreading, rather than a substantive mistake in examining the asylum claim.
The court concluded that neither proposed point met the statutory test: the point must involve a matter of exceptional public importance, and an appeal must be desirable in the public interest. It rejected the certificate application. The ruling concerned permission to appeal the earlier refusal of leave; it did not determine the asylum claim itself.