The High Court has quashed a decision refusing protection to an anonymised Pakistani applicant, finding that the International Protection Appeals Tribunal did not properly assess potentially relevant documents submitted in support of his claim.
In a judgment delivered on 28 June 2023, Ms Justice Siobhán Phelan ordered the case remitted for fresh consideration by a different tribunal member. She said the tribunal had erred in law by proceeding on the basis that documents could not be accepted unless the applicant’s general credibility was accepted. The court will hear the parties on the terms of any consequential order.
The applicant, identified as M.H., sought judicial review of the tribunal’s May 2022 decision rejecting his appeals against refusal of refugee status and subsidiary protection. He said he was from Datote in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, near the Line of Control, and had been involved with the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front. His claims included that family members had been killed and that he faced risk if returned.
The tribunal had made multiple adverse credibility findings, including findings based on inconsistencies in the applicant’s oral evidence and his admission that he had given untruthful information to gain an immigration advantage. Those findings were not challenged in the judicial review. The court also rejected the applicant’s challenges to the tribunal’s assessment of the risk of indiscriminate violence under Article 15(c), including its reliance on updated country information about the ceasefire and civilian casualties.
The dispute the court upheld concerned how the tribunal assessed supporting documents. The judgment records that the tribunal referred to some documents, including membership cards, but did not address the contents of a letter attributed to the JKLF or a February 1993 newspaper article. Instead, the tribunal said documentation from Pakistan could not be accepted where it could not be independently verified and depended on the applicant’s general credibility.
Justice Phelan said decision-makers must assess submitted documents as part of the protection claim, even where the applicant’s oral account is not believed. She found the tribunal’s broad approach avoided individual assessment of relevant material, including documents that might be amenable to further verification. The judgment did not find the documents authentic or establish the applicant’s claims; it held that the tribunal’s approach to assessing them was legally flawed.
The court therefore quashed the tribunal’s decision and ordered a fresh determination by a different member. The protection claim itself was not granted by the High Court.