The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing an asylum appeal, finding that relevant information about Western Sahara had been treated selectively and incompletely. The case was remitted for fresh consideration by a different Tribunal Member.
In a judgment delivered on 12 June 2013, Ms Justice M. H. Clark said the applicant, identified as H. S. [MOROCCO], claimed she faced persecution by Moroccan authorities because of her involvement in a group advocating Saharawi self-determination. She said she had been arrested, detained and sexually assaulted. Those were her claims, not findings made by the High Court.
The Tribunal had rejected her appeal on credibility grounds. Among its reasons, it considered her lack of knowledge of an event called “Black Friday” to undermine her account. The Tribunal relied on an English-language internet extract which described a demonstration on 16 December 2005 and reported that 120 people had been arrested. The applicant had said she did not know that name, while describing demonstrations and events she associated with October 2005.
The applicant argued that the Tribunal failed to consider a wider body of country of origin information and gave insufficient weight to a medical report. The respondents argued that her difficulties with the account, particularly her limited knowledge of “Black Friday”, justified rejecting it.
The judge found that the decision-makers had not properly assessed the claim against relevant information about Western Sahara. The materials before the Tribunal included a 2007 US Department of State report specific to Western Sahara, which recorded persecution and sexual abuse of detainees but did not mention “Black Friday” or a demonstration on 16 December 2005. The court also noted that the online extract’s provenance was unclear and that other reports did not corroborate its account of that event.
The judgment said the Tribunal’s reliance on the extract had affected its decision. The court considered it unreasonable, in light of the wider country information, to conclude that the applicant’s ignorance of the event or its label “defied belief”. It also said the evidence did not establish that “Black Friday” was a commonly known name in the area.
The judge acknowledged unresolved weaknesses in parts of the applicant’s account, including her failure to notify the claimed group about her detention and the lack of objective information about the group. But those concerns did not alter the court’s conclusion about the handling of country information. The judge said it was unnecessary to decide the challenge concerning the medical report.
The High Court quashed the Tribunal decision and ordered a fresh consideration before a different Tribunal Member, who was to receive a copy of the judgment. It did not determine the applicant’s asylum claim or order that she be granted protection.