The High Court quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting a Syrian man’s appeal for refugee status, finding that the tribunal had unreasonably assessed country information about conscription in Syria. The case was remitted to the tribunal for determination by a different member.
The man, identified in the judgment as S.A. (Syria), sought judicial review of the tribunal’s 16 April 2012 decision, which affirmed a recommendation that he not be declared a refugee. The hearing dealt with both leave to apply for judicial review and the substantive application.
S.A. said he returned to Damascus in July 2011 after studying in Moldova because his student visa had ended and his passport was due to expire. He alleged that Syrian authorities took his documents, conscripted him and sent him to a military unit deployed against demonstrations. He said he deserted after witnessing killings and feared execution if returned to Syria. These were his claims, not findings by the High Court.
The tribunal considered it not credible that he would have returned to Syria to seek work in July 2011, given the unrest and information that returning men could face questioning or conscription. The High Court found that reasoning speculative: there was no evidence that S.A. knew of the risk before returning, and his return was also explained by the end of his studies and the expiry of his passport. The court said the tribunal had failed to give adequate consideration to country information submitted on appeal that supported his account of the risk faced by young men returning to Damascus.
The court also noted matters that had not been subject to adverse credibility findings, including S.A.’s identity and age, his studies and graduation in Moldova, his family’s continued presence in Syria, and his earlier military training. It concluded that the tribunal had not assessed the full picture of the evidence fairly and that its treatment of the country information was unreasonable.
The court rejected the separate challenges concerning S.A.’s failure to seek asylum in Turkey, Ukraine or Denmark, his delay in applying after arriving in Ireland, and his lack of travel documents. It held that the tribunal was entitled to reach an adverse conclusion on those matters under section 11(B) of the Refugee Act 1996. Those grounds alone would not have succeeded.
The court therefore quashed the tribunal’s 16 April 2012 determination and remitted the case for a fresh determination by a different tribunal member. It did not decide that S.A. qualified for refugee status or make a final finding on his account of events in Syria.