The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting an asylum appeal after finding that the applicant’s solicitors were not given a fair opportunity to address a passport that was central to the decision on his nationality.
In a judgment delivered on 15 December 2015, Ms Justice Faherty granted leave for judicial review following a telescoped hearing and ordered the matter remitted to the Tribunal for a de novo hearing before a different member. The court did not decide whether the applicant was a refugee or determine his nationality.
The applicant said he was from Mauritania and had fled after his girlfriend became pregnant outside marriage, which he feared would expose him to severe punishment under Sharia law. He said he travelled to Ireland using a Guinea-Bissau passport supplied by an agent, bearing another person’s details and his photograph. The Tribunal rejected his appeal after relying on a Garda Technical Bureau report that said the passport appeared genuine and showed no evidence of alteration. It concluded that the passport undermined his claim to be from Mauritania.
The applicant’s representatives had asked for the passport to be checked with Guinea-Bissau authorities. In submissions sent on the day the Tribunal issued its decision, they also said they had never been allowed to see the original passport and again sought verification by the issuing authorities. The Tribunal relied on the Garda report but did not address the complaint about access to the document.
Justice Faherty found that, before concluding the appeal, fair procedures required the Tribunal to engage further with the solicitors about their complaint or address it in its decision. The Tribunal’s decision foreclosed the possibility that they could inspect the passport and make any resulting inquiries. Because nationality was a central issue and the Tribunal treated the passport finding as decisive, that procedural failure was sufficient to vitiate the decision.
The court upheld several other credibility findings, including findings concerning the applicant’s travel details and his knowledge of his girlfriend’s family. It observed that the Tribunal’s assessment of his knowledge of Rosso, Mauritania, might be suspect, but said that issue alone would not invalidate the decision. The court rejected the separate arguments that the Tribunal had to assess future persecution in Mauritania or Guinea-Bissau on the case as presented.
The order quashes the Tribunal decision and requires a fresh hearing before a different member. The judgment makes no finding on the merits of the asylum claim.