The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing refugee status to an anonymised Ukrainian applicant, finding that several credibility findings were irrational or inadequately reasoned. The matter was remitted to the Tribunal for a rehearing.
The applicant had challenged the Tribunal’s 18 February 2009 decision, which upheld the refusal of his refugee application. He said he had faced violence and threats from moneylenders with alleged mafia links in Ukraine and that the authorities had failed to protect him. Those claims were allegations in his asylum account; the High Court did not determine whether they were true.
The court focused on how the Tribunal assessed the account of a threat involving concrete. The applicant’s written account said his feet were placed in a basin of cement and that he was told he would go “swimming” the next morning. The Tribunal understood the account to mean the cement had set and that he would be carried into a river. The judge found the account ambiguous and said it did not establish that the cement had fully set. The resulting credibility finding was based on a mischaracterisation and was irrational.
The judge also found that the Tribunal had not adequately weighed medical reports in their own right. It had discounted them by reference to the concrete incident, although the reports concerned injuries whose circumstances were unclear. A separate finding about the applicant’s alleged escape while being taken to fight in Chechnya lacked adequate reasons and appeared to rely solely on demeanour, without identifying what about his demeanour undermined credibility. The judge said extra care was required because the applicant gave evidence through an interpreter.
Other credibility points were described as peripheral or speculative. These included the Tribunal’s reasoning about the applicant’s travel on a forged passport, the alleged search for him in Siberia, and an inconsistency about why he came to Ireland. The court also found that the Tribunal had not adequately considered the applicant’s explanation for not producing a loan document or his account of seeking help from the Prosecutor’s Office. It said submitted decisions concerning other Ukrainian applicants had to be properly considered, even though the Tribunal was not bound by them.
The court granted leave to seek judicial review, quashed the Tribunal decision and remitted the matter to be reheard. It directed that a copy of the judgment be placed on the applicant’s file if he chose. The ruling did not itself grant refugee status or decide the underlying asylum claim.