The High Court quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing a Sudanese applicant a recommendation for refugee status, finding that several credibility findings were flawed. It referred the matter back to the Tribunal for consideration by a different member.
The applicant, identified in the judgment only as M. G. D., sought judicial review of the Tribunal’s decision of 31 January 2010. The case concerned an alleged attack on his village of Abyei in May 2008, his account of an injury sustained while escaping, and his knowledge of Sudanese currency and Dinka tribal markings.
The court found that the Tribunal had failed to address country of origin information submitted by the applicant describing fighting and destruction in Abyei in the days after 14 May 2008. The Tribunal had said it could find no record of an attack on 17 May. The High Court held that the submitted material documented prolonged fighting in the area and that the Tribunal’s finding could not stand.
It also held that the Tribunal had speculated when it questioned how the applicant could remain unsure whether his leg injury was caused by a gunshot after receiving medical treatment in Libya. There was no evidence that medical staff had explained the injury to him or that he could understand what they said.
On currency, the court found that the Tribunal had ignored the applicant’s explanation that the new Sudanese notes were not used extensively in southern Sudan. That failure to consider a relevant explanation breached fair procedures. The court also found that the Tribunal had not engaged with the applicant’s explanation for lacking traditional Dinka facial markings. If the Tribunal was finding that he was not Dinka on that basis, the judgment said, it needed evidence that the markings were always present among Dinka men.
The judgment said it was unclear whether the Tribunal had found that the applicant was not Sudanese, noting that the first-instance decision had accepted his nationality. It also observed that the Tribunal had made no forward-looking assessment of whether he would face persecution if returned. The court did not make a finding on that risk.
Separately, the respondents sought to strike out the judicial review after information emerged linking the applicant’s fingerprints to a Somali identity recorded in France in 2009. The High Court accepted evidence that the lawyers conducting the review had not known of that information and that an earlier response had been taken over the telephone without an interpreter. It refused to strike out the proceedings, while describing the applicant’s earlier account of his whereabouts as a serious matter.
The court extended the time to bring the proceedings, which had been issued six days late. Its final order was to quash the Tribunal’s 2010 decision and remit the matter to a different Tribunal member.