The High Court has refused a Pakistani family’s application to quash Refugee Appeals Tribunal decisions rejecting their asylum appeals, finding that the credibility issues raised in the judicial review were not central to the Tribunal’s decision.
Mr Justice McDermott’s judgment, delivered on 17 July 2012, addressed two grounds concerning how the Tribunal assessed the family’s account of attacks in Faisalabad. A separate ground about whether the applicants had an effective remedy was adjourned pending a Court of Justice of the European Union reference in another case; it was not decided in this judgment.
The family, whose members are anonymised in the judgment, said they faced religious persecution in Pakistan. The first applicant, a Sunni Muslim and member of the Sunni Tehreek, said members of the rival Sipah E Sahaba group attacked a religious procession on 27 February 2010. He said armed men later robbed his shop and raided the family home, threatening and assaulting the family. The family arrived in Ireland on 9 March 2010 on visas for a planned holiday. They applied for asylum on 13 April, after learning that the shop had been attacked and burnt after their departure.
The Tribunal had treated a time recorded on a police report as inconsistent with the applicants’ account of when the home incident was reported. The High Court found that the Tribunal had misstated part of the evidence: the applicants had not said the attack at home occurred at 4pm or 5pm. But a discrepancy remained between the report’s recorded time of 2pm and the first applicant’s evidence that police attended between 4pm and 5pm. The judge said the Tribunal was entitled to consider the discrepancy and his explanation.
The Tribunal also noted that the report did not specifically mention the children being physically assaulted, while accounts of slight beatings appeared in later interviews. The first applicant explained that he had left this out because he feared for the children’s safety. The judge held that the Tribunal was entitled to assess that omission and explanation as part of its credibility assessment.
The court stressed that the Tribunal’s main reason for rejecting the appeals was its finding that the family could seek protection from Pakistan’s police and courts and could relocate within Pakistan. That finding was not challenged in the judicial review and, the judge said, would have led to the same result even without the comments on credibility. He concluded that the decision was within jurisdiction and reached through fair procedures, and refused the relief sought. The judgment did not itself determine the family’s asylum claims afresh.