The High Court has quashed part of an asylum appeal decision because the Refugee Appeals Tribunal did not assess whether an applicant might face future persecution if returned to Sudan. The court sent the matter back for a supplementary decision focused on that question.
The anonymised applicant, identified in the judgment as M. A. M. A., claimed to be a member of the Berti tribe from northern Darfur. He said he had fled after attacks, detention and an attempted execution. The Commissioner rejected his account as lacking credibility, and the Tribunal member also rejected the claimed events of persecution, imprisonment, escape and travel to Ireland.
The applicant’s judicial review was based on the argument that rejection of his account of past persecution did not, by itself, remove the need to consider future risk. His counsel pointed to the absence of an express finding that he was not Sudanese or Berti, a letter from a Darfur community organisation, and his apparent familiarity with northern Darfur’s geography. The respondents argued that the Tribunal decision rejected his credibility in full.
The court accepted that disbelief of past events does not always end the inquiry into future risk. It said the decision-maker must consider whether any parts of an applicant’s account can still provide a basis for assessing that risk. The court also said that reports of foreign judgments should not be used as a source of current country-condition facts, which can change quickly.
In this case, the court found enough uncertainty about whether the applicant might be Sudanese and from Darfur to require a prospective-risk assessment. It said his apparent familiarity with the region and the lack of evidence that he came from elsewhere supported that conclusion. The court did not decide that he would face persecution, or that he was in fact from Darfur.
The court quashed the Tribunal’s 3 April 2008 appeal decision only to the extent that it lacked a reasoned assessment of future risk if the applicant were returned to Sudan. It found no flaw in any other aspect of the decision or the process.
The appeal was remitted for a supplementary decision, with a recommendation that the same Tribunal member handle it if available. The remaining issue is whether current country-of-origin information provides a basis to consider that a person who may be Berti and from northern Darfur would face a real chance of persecution if returned to Khartoum. The Tribunal is to provide relevant information to the applicant for comment and consider those observations and any further information he supplies. The court said the oral hearing need not be reopened unless the Tribunal member considers that desirable; if that member is unavailable, the appeal may be assigned to another member for rehearing.