The High Court granted a Pakistani Ahmadi couple leave to seek judicial review of Refugee Appeals Tribunal decisions refusing their asylum appeals, finding substantial grounds on several issues. The ruling did not determine whether they qualify for refugee status or quash the Tribunal decisions.
The applicants said they faced threats and violence in Gujrat because of their Ahmadi faith and religious activities. They said a First Information Report (FIR) was issued against them in August 2006 under Pakistani blasphemy provisions after they were accused of preaching and helping a Sunni couple convert. They also said they were attacked, and that police sought them after their home was raided. These were their claims; the Tribunal had questioned their credibility and the FIR’s authenticity.
The Tribunal refused their appeals in July 2007. It considered the couple’s travel accounts implausible, questioned whether the wife had preached, and found they could relocate within Pakistan, including to Rabwah. It also concluded that Ahmadis faced discrimination but not institutionalised persecution. The applicants challenged those findings, arguing in part that the Tribunal had failed to address country information and the potential seriousness of the FIR.
Justice Clark said the applicants had established substantial grounds to argue that the Tribunal did not adequately address reports about conditions for Ahmadis in Rabwah or explain its finding that there was no systemic persecution. The reports, which had been before the Tribunal, were capable of calling into question the view that Rabwah was a safe place to relocate, the judge said.
The court also found arguable grounds that the Tribunal had not assessed the core issue: whether the applicants, as Ahmadis facing an investigation or prosecution under laws directed at their religious practice, risked persecution. The Tribunal decision did not refer to the specific FIR charges or their potential penalties, the judgment said. The court did not find that the FIR was authentic or that the applicants’ account was true; it held that the possibility the document’s contents were true had not been fully considered.
For the wife, the court found substantial grounds to challenge the finding that she had not engaged in preaching, and to argue that the Tribunal had not fully considered her explanation for not seeking asylum in Bahrain or Muscat. The court declined leave on several other challenges, including those concerning the husband’s relationship with a murdered Ahmadi teacher and the wife’s lack of physical harm in Pakistan. It also held that the applicants’ challenge to the Tribunal’s assessment of their travel arrangements had not been made and could not succeed on the grounds before it.
The court granted the necessary extension of time and leave on specified grounds. The ruling was at the permission stage of judicial review: it allowed the challenges to proceed on those grounds, without deciding them finally.