The High Court has dismissed a judicial review challenge by an anonymised applicant from Pakistan to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s refusal to accept a late appeal against a decision to transfer his asylum claim to the UK.
The tribunal refused the appeal in a letter dated 14 December 2016. It said the transfer decision had been sent by registered post to the applicant’s last notified address and signed for. It also said it knew of no similar case in which a late appeal had been accepted.
The applicant had applied for asylum in Ireland in March 2015, after leaving the UK. The Refugee Applications Commissioner decided in November 2015 that the UK was responsible for his claim under the Dublin system. A transfer decision was sent by registered post to the address the applicant had provided. He later said he had not received it.
His solicitors lodged a late appeal in September 2016. The tribunal requested an affidavit explaining the delay, which was provided in October. It then refused to accept the appeal. The applicant sought to quash that refusal and have a regulation governing deemed service of notices declared invalid.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys found that the tribunal had not imposed an absolute bar on late appeals. Its reference to an earlier decision recognising discretion to accept late appeals in exceptional circumstances showed that it had considered whether to extend the time limit. The judge interpreted the tribunal’s first reason to mean it did not accept that the applicant had shown good reasons for an extension, given that the registered letter had been signed for.
The court did not decide whether the applicant actually received the letter. The judge said the validity of the tribunal’s decision did not depend on a finding that he had received it. He also described the affidavit evidence as sparse and unparticularised.
The judge rejected the claims that the tribunal’s decision breached natural justice or the EU law principle of effectiveness, and said the applicant’s legitimate-expectation argument was unparticularised and unsubstantiated. Because the tribunal had exercised discretion rather than treating the deadline as absolute, the challenge to the validity of the regulation did not arise.
The proceedings were dismissed. The judgment, delivered on 18 October 2019, did not determine the underlying asylum claim or make a transfer order.