The High Court has refused a Sudanese asylum applicant’s request to quash a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision, finding that the tribunal’s brief reference to internal relocation did not affect the basis on which it rejected his appeal.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Hedigan on 4 November 2008, concerned an application for judicial review of the tribunal’s decision to affirm an earlier recommendation that E. A. W. should not be declared a refugee. The applicant challenged the tribunal’s use of a UK Home Office operational guidance note on Sudan, which had not been supplied to him before the tribunal hearing.
The applicant said he and his wife had lived in a village in Sudan’s Darfour region until an attack in September 2005. He claimed government-sponsored Janjaweed militia burned their home and killed people, and that he feared being killed because he was not Arab and that the government wanted his land. He and his wife travelled to Libya, where they were separated; he later travelled alone to Ireland. These were his account of events, not findings made by the High Court.
At the tribunal hearing in March 2006, the Presenting Officer produced the guidance note, which said that Janjaweed operated in Darfour and that non-Arab ethnic Darfurees could relocate elsewhere in Sudan. The applicant was asked to comment and said he did not think the report was true. The tribunal later rejected his personal credibility and concluded he had not established a well-founded fear of persecution. His challenge did not dispute those credibility findings.
The applicant argued that not receiving the guidance note in advance denied him a fair opportunity to respond and breached section 16(8) of the Refugee Act 1996. The respondents said the note was commonly used and available online, the applicant was legally represented, and no request was made at the hearing for an adjournment or time to provide written submissions.
The High Court rejected the fair-procedures complaint. It said the internal-relocation issue was a familiar and live question in asylum cases, and the applicant’s representatives could have sought more time or made submissions. The judge also held that the guidance note was an additional remark, not a core part of the tribunal’s reasoning: the appeal had been rejected on the tribunal’s adverse credibility assessment and finding that no subjective fear had been established.
Because the disclosure issue under section 16(8) could not affect the outcome, the judge did not decide whether the note fell within that provision. He refused the relief sought, leaving the tribunal’s decision in place.