The High Court has refused to quash two Refugee Appeals Tribunal decisions that rejected a Pakistani family’s applications for recommendations of refugee status.
Mr Justice Barr gave judgment on 30 January 2015 in a telescoped judicial review. The court extended the time for the family to bring the proceedings to 21 February 2011, then considered their challenge to the Tribunal decisions, dated 18 January 2011.
The family comprised two adults and four children, whose claims were considered with their mother’s asylum claim. The judgment uses initials for the applicants. It records that two of the children had since reached adulthood.
The parents alleged that the father’s family opposed their marriage across Sunni and Shia religious backgrounds and later threatened and assaulted them. They said relatives sought to arrange marriages for two children, wanted the children sent to a madrassa, and attempted to abduct three of them in 2008. The Tribunal rejected the claims largely on credibility grounds, including its assessment of the family’s travel to Ireland, their failure to seek police protection, and the alleged events in Pakistan.
The applicants argued that the Tribunal had not separately assessed the children’s claims or adequately considered their best interests, among other grounds. The respondents said the parents had asked for the children’s claims to be considered as part of the mother’s application, and had not sought to call the children as witnesses.
The High Court found that the Tribunal had considered the evidence about the alleged abduction attempt, proposed marriages and madrassa, and that the children’s absence as witnesses did not invalidate its decisions. It also held that the Tribunal was entitled to assess the parents’ account and to conclude that state protection might have been available, given that the family had not reported the alleged incidents to police.
The court accepted one criticism: it found unreasonable the Tribunal’s adverse credibility finding based on the family not seeking asylum at the earliest opportunity. The family had applied the day after arriving in Ireland, following the agent they said had arranged their travel. That conclusion did not alter the outcome. The court upheld the Tribunal’s other challenged findings, including its treatment of the travel and passport evidence, medical reports, religion and internal relocation.
The court refused to quash either decision. It did not itself determine the family’s asylum claims or grant refugee status.