The High Court quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal finding that a Pakistani asylum applicant’s account was not credible, ruling that the tribunal had failed to explain how it reconciled that conclusion with its acceptance of three police reports as genuine.
In a judgment delivered on 25 July 2014, Mr Justice Barr extended the time for the applicant’s judicial review proceedings and found them to be within time. He set aside the credibility finding but upheld the tribunal’s conclusions on state protection and internal relocation. Because those conclusions could be severed from the credibility finding, he dismissed the judicial review application.
The anonymised applicant, identified in the judgment as A.M.G. (Pakistan), said he had refused a friend’s invitation to join the Taliban in 2004 and was later threatened and targeted. Police reports described threats demanding money, an armed roadside encounter in which money and a mobile phone were taken, and his kidnapping in May 2005. He was released after his father paid a ransom, according to the judgment’s account of his case.
The applicant arrived in Ireland on a visitor’s visa in March 2006, which expired the following month. He applied for asylum in March 2009, after being stopped by Irish immigration authorities. The Refugee Applications Commissioner recommended that he not be recognised as a refugee, and the tribunal affirmed that recommendation in November 2009.
The tribunal had questioned the applicant’s account, including why he had not sought asylum sooner and why his family had remained unharmed in Pakistan. The High Court held that the tribunal had relied on the three police reports when considering state protection, yet had not addressed their significance when making its adverse credibility finding. If it intended to disregard the reports, it needed to explain why, the judge said.
The court did not accept the applicant’s separate challenges to the tribunal’s findings on state protection and relocation. It held that the evidence, including the police reports and country-of-origin information, supported the tribunal’s view that Pakistani authorities would take his complaints seriously. It also found the tribunal was entitled to conclude that he could relocate elsewhere in Pakistan, given his circumstances and his earlier movement within the country without interference.
The ruling did not determine whether the applicant qualified for asylum. It quashed the tribunal’s credibility finding while leaving its state-protection and relocation findings intact.