The High Court has refused an application to quash an International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) decision recommending that an anonymised applicant should not receive refugee status or subsidiary protection.
In a judgment delivered on 22 July 2021, Mr Justice Max Barrett said he saw no error of law or fact in the tribunal’s process or decision. The proceedings were a judicial review, concerned with the lawfulness of the decision-making process, rather than an appeal for the court to reassess the evidence.
The applicant, identified as Y, is a national of Country Z. He first claimed to face persecution because he was gay, but at a March 2019 interview said that account was entirely fabricated. He then said he had worked for an election commission and faced police persecution connected with that work.
The IPAT rejected the material facts of the later account, citing inconsistencies about the elections, the date and circumstances of an alleged restaurant attack, and the length of a hospital stay recorded in medical documents. It also found that the applicant had not reasonably explained the change from his initial account. The tribunal upheld the International Protection Office’s recommendation against granting protection on 9 March 2020.
Y argued that the tribunal had not properly considered his explanation for the initial false claim, his anxiety and related medical evidence, or his explanations for discrepancies in his later account. The High Court found that the tribunal had considered the case as a whole and gave intelligible, specific and rational reasons for its credibility findings. The judge said the medical evidence showed high anxiety and medication, but did not indicate that Y was unfit to give evidence or subject to memory lapses.
The judge stressed that he was not required to determine whether the claimed police and political persecution had occurred. He found no basis to quash the IPAT decision and refused the principal and other relief sought. The court indicated that costs should be ordered against Y because he had lost the proceedings. It invited counsel to raise any different view on costs within 14 days, after which a brief hearing could be scheduled. The judgment does not state that a final costs order was made.