The High Court has rejected an anonymised applicant’s judicial review challenge to a deportation decision, finding that the Minister was entitled to conclude that returning him to Bangladesh would not breach the prohibition on refoulement.
The applicant sought certiorari to quash a deportation order dated 26 January 2014. His remaining ground was that the Minister’s conclusion under section 5 of the Refugee Act 1996 was irrational because the Minister and officials had assessed country information incorrectly and given too little weight to material describing risks to Buddhists in Bangladesh. Other grounds had been withdrawn.
The applicant, a Buddhist, had sought asylum in Ireland in September 2009, saying Buddhists faced persecution in Bangladesh. His refugee application was refused in July 2010. The Refugee Appeals Tribunal concluded that he had not suffered persecution for a Convention reason and was not likely to face it on return. He did not apply for subsidiary protection.
In later submissions seeking leave to remain, his representatives referred to attacks and discrimination against Buddhists, including reports of attacks on a Buddhist monastery and a letter from Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs expressing concern about attacks on Buddhist communities. The Minister’s decision letter said that section 5 had been considered and that the public interest in maintaining the integrity of the asylum and immigration systems outweighed factors supporting leave to remain.
The court examined the officials’ assessment of the country information. It rejected the applicant’s complaint that a passage describing police, border guard and army responses to attacks was irrational or unfairly inaccurate. The judge said the passage did not itself state the decision under challenge and was not so inaccurate or unreliable as to make the decision-making process irrational. The court also found that a further description of the state’s response to attacks was adequately supported by the material.
The judge said the Minister and officials had ample material on which to conclude that section 5 would not be breached. The applicant had to show that the conclusion fundamentally offended reason and common sense because it was unsupported by the file; it was not enough that the judge might have reached a different conclusion as decision-maker.
The application for judicial review was rejected. The judgment does not quash the deportation order.