The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing an asylum applicant’s claim, finding that the Tribunal did not adequately explain why it disbelieved her account of an alleged attack in Tbilisi. The case was remitted for a rehearing before a different Tribunal member.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as M.B. [Georgia], is a Georgian national of mixed Georgian and Ossetian ethnicity. She sought judicial review of the Tribunal’s negative recommendation, dated 4 April 2012. The judicial review proceeded by consent as a telescoped hearing on 25 January 2013. The case had been issued more than two weeks outside the statutory time limit; the respondents did not oppose an extension.
The applicant’s account included an attack in Tbilisi in August 2006, after she had fled there. She said three or four men beat and burned her, that a patrolling police car interrupted the attack, and that the men threatened her. She also said insulting letters were later pushed under her door. The Tribunal accepted that she had suffered traumatising events in Georgia but disbelieved the Tbilisi attack, in part because she had not sought medical attention. It concluded she could relocate to Tbilisi and was not likely to face persecution on a Convention ground.
The applicant argued, among other things, that the Tribunal had treated her evidence inconsistently and unfairly, and had wrongly relied on the absence of medical treatment to reject the alleged attack. The respondents maintained that the Tribunal’s decision was lawful, submitting that the lack of medical evidence and differences in her accounts could be considered when assessing credibility.
The court said the Tribunal’s reasoning did not clearly explain its shift from accepting the applicant’s account of earlier events to disbelieving her account of events in Tbilisi. It also found that the Tribunal acted inconsistently and in breach of fair procedures when it found a divergence in her evidence about how her burn scars were sustained. The court noted a medical report recorded scars and burn marks that could be consistent with cigarette burns, alongside the Tribunal member’s recognition of the applicant’s traumatic past and psychiatric presentation.
The court further held that the Tribunal erred by disbelieving the alleged attack simply because the applicant had not sought medical treatment. Her past use of health services did not establish that she would definitely have sought treatment on this occasion. The court found the Tribunal had not adequately considered her claim that the attack was interrupted, the police report, the medical report, the subsequent threats and letters, and her departure from the city.
The court rejected the claim that the Tribunal imposed an unlawful corroboration requirement, failed to consider the specified protection regulation, or applied a stricter standard of proof. It granted certiorari on grounds (ii) and (iii) of the statement of grounds and ordered the matter reheard by a different Tribunal member. The judgment does not determine the asylum claim on its merits.