The High Court has refused an Afghan applicant’s request to quash a 2012 Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting his asylum claim on credibility grounds. The court found that the Tribunal could reasonably conclude, from the applicant’s bank statement and his explanations of its transactions, that his claimed employment was not established. It held that errors or unfairness in other credibility findings did not undermine the decision overall.
The applicant said he had worked as a specialist driver for a company transporting mine-clearing equipment to US army camps in Afghanistan. He said the Taliban sent him threatening letters and attacked his family home, prompting him to flee. The Tribunal rejected his claim, finding that the asserted employment relationship was “fictional”. The applicant sought judicial review and an order quashing the Tribunal’s decision.
The bank statement was in the name “Imal”. The applicant said it showed his salary and explained that certain third parties named in transactions had received salary payments before transferring them to him. The High Court found that the statement showed withdrawals to two of those people, MT and AQ, rather than the transfers he described. Although the Tribunal mistakenly described a transaction involving B as a withdrawal when it was a lodgement, the court said that error did not displace the central finding: the entries marked as salary payments were attributed to the employer, not to those individuals.
The judge held that the Tribunal was entitled to treat the bank evidence and the applicant’s answers as going to the heart of his claim. On that basis, it could ascribe no weight to the other documents, including the work identity card and driving licence. The court also rejected arguments that the Tribunal had to verify the employer or ask the Refugee Applications Commissioner to make further inquiries.
The court did identify problems in some subsidiary credibility findings. It said it was unfair to describe the applicant’s answer about whether his family had been harmed as evasive, and unfair to rely on an account of his telephone contact with his uncle without explaining why it counted against him. The judge also said a contradiction about the Taliban letters would not, by itself, rationally show that the applicant lacked credibility: a person could believe that leaving a job would not remove the danger. The court considered the finding about his travel to Ireland peripheral in the circumstances and noted that the Tribunal said it had considered country of origin information, though it did not explain why that information did not assist the applicant.
The court concluded that these faults did not vitiate the decision because they were not as closely connected to the core claim as the employment finding. It denied the relief sought. The ruling was delivered on 22 August 2016.