The High Court refused an applicant leave to seek judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision that he was not a refugee, while extending the deadline for his application to 18 July 2006.
In a judgment delivered on 31 July 2008, Mr Justice McCarthy said the applicant had commenced proceedings by notice of motion dated 18 July 2006. The Tribunal’s decision, made on 19 June 2006, had affirmed the Refugee Applications Commissioner’s recommendation refusing him a declaration as a refugee. The decision was sent under cover of a letter dated 27 June and received the following day.
The ordinary deadline expired on 6 July. The judge extended time to 18 July, citing the applicant’s change of solicitors, the time needed to obtain advice and decide how to proceed, and the preparation of the application. He described the delay as extremely modest.
The applicant argued that the Tribunal had wrongly treated parts of his account as inconsistent, including how he and his brother were released after three days in custody. He also challenged the Tribunal member’s assumptions about roads near the Ethiopia-Kenya border and airports in Kenya, and said the Tribunal had not properly considered his claimed risk of future harm connected to his father’s membership of the Oromo Liberation Front.
The judge said the account in the initial asylum questionnaire omitted the claim that a friend of the applicant’s father had paid a bribe, and stated that the applicant received no food, which was later corrected. He found the Tribunal member had raised the perceived inconsistency at the hearing and given the applicant an opportunity to respond.
The judge accepted that the Tribunal member was wrong to say Nairobi was Kenya’s only international airport. He regarded that error as severable from other credibility concerns, and said the Tribunal’s decision stated that the identified untruths or inconsistencies were not material or significant to the asylum claim. He also found the applicant had been given an opportunity at the hearing to address the member’s views about the journey and roads.
On the claimed risk of future persecution, the judge said the Tribunal’s conclusion rested on its view that the past incidents, even accepting the applicant’s account, were not sufficiently serious or systematic to show a reasonable likelihood of future persecution. He found no basis to intervene under the applicable judicial review standard.
The court therefore refused leave to seek judicial review. It did not quash the Tribunal’s decision or determine the applicant’s refugee claim afresh.