The High Court refused leave for a married couple from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to challenge decisions rejecting their asylum appeals. It also refused to extend the time limit for bringing the proceedings, which had started about three months after the husband was notified of the Tribunal’s decision.
The couple said they had been caught up in events surrounding a missing truck carrying government arms in 2000. They alleged that soldiers detained and mistreated them, and that after fleeing they lived in hiding for three years before being arrested, tortured and raped. They said they later escaped to Ireland. These were their accounts; the court’s judgment records that the Refugee Applications Commissioner and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal had rejected significant parts of them on credibility grounds.
The couple argued that the Tribunal had not properly considered medical reports, earlier Tribunal decisions, including a positive decision involving the wife’s brother-in-law, and testimony from three family members. The High Court examined the issues at the leave stage, where the couple had to show substantial grounds for challenging the decisions. Because the proceedings were late, they also had to establish a good and sufficient reason for an extension.
On the medical evidence, the court found that the reports were considered but were not sufficiently supportive or corroborative to require the Tribunal to explain why it gave them limited weight. The court noted that the reports recorded the couple’s accounts and some physical findings, but did not support many of the forms of ill-treatment they described.
The court accepted that the brother-in-law’s Tribunal decision shared some features with the couple’s account. It found, however, that the Tribunal member was not bound by that decision and had given adequate, though formulaic, reasons for treating the earlier decisions as insufficient to overturn the negative recommendations. The court also found that the family witnesses’ evidence supported the couple’s presence at the brother-in-law’s house when he was arrested, but did not establish that they were targeted, persecuted or at risk during the following three years, or that they would face persecution if returned to the DRC.
The court said the couple had not shown a good or sufficient reason for the delay. Having considered the merits as well, it found no substantial grounds for judicial review and refused leave. The judgment records that the court did not grant leave to challenge the Tribunal decisions; it did not determine a full judicial review hearing.