The High Court granted an asylum applicant leave to seek judicial review but dismissed his substantive application, ruling that a flaw in the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s treatment of an electoral card did not invalidate its decision to reject his claim.
In a judgment delivered on 4 November 2015, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys said the tribunal had erred in its analysis of the card. It said the document misspelled the applicant’s name by omitting an “h” and incorrectly rendered the French word for May. The judge said those criticisms did not appear to match the document: the alleged spelling error was not apparent, and “nais” appeared to refer to the applicant’s date of birth.
The judge nevertheless held that the error was not fatal to the decision overall. He noted that the tribunal had found the applicant generally lacking in credibility, rather than relying on the card to undermine an otherwise credible account, and that the applicant had not cleared up the confusion about the document at the tribunal hearing. The card also contained a flaw, though not the one identified by the tribunal.
The applicant said he had faced persecution in Côte d’Ivoire because of his claimed role in a political party. He said he had been beaten, separated from his family and that his house had been set on fire during unrest in 2011. The tribunal rejected his evidence on credibility grounds, including inconsistencies about party figures and the whereabouts of his wife and children, and gaps in his knowledge of security forces and militias.
The central issue argued in the judicial review concerned country of origin information about Côte d’Ivoire. The applicant’s barrister argued that the tribunal should have addressed that material in detail, including reports documenting unrest shortly before the applicant’s departure. The judge held that a tribunal need not provide a narrative discussion of such information where it has rejected the applicant’s credibility for independent reasons and has not made a finding inconsistent with the country information.
The judge also ruled that a separate complaint—that the tribunal should have investigated documents submitted by the applicant—could not be relied on because it had not been pleaded as a ground of challenge. The judgment records that the applicant had leave to proceed in accordance with his statement of grounds; the substantive judicial review was dismissed. The court was to hear the parties on consequential matters.