The High Court refused leave for judicial review of decisions refusing subsidiary protection and making a deportation order against Oliver Ninga Mbi, while granting him an extension of time to bring the deportation challenge.
Mr Justice Kevin Cross delivered the judgment on 23 March 2012. The applicant sought certiorari and other relief. The court applied the arguable-grounds threshold to the subsidiary protection challenge and the substantial-grounds threshold to the deportation challenge. It said that if leave were granted on the subsidiary protection decision, the deportation challenge would follow.
The deportation application was brought about two weeks outside the statutory 14-day period. The applicant said he had first consulted the Legal Aid Board, which could not assist, and then contacted his current solicitors. The judge granted the extension of time.
The judgment recounts the applicant’s allegations that he was involved with an opposition group in the Democratic Republic of Congo and was arrested, tortured and threatened by government troops in 2007. Those matters were allegations, not findings made in this judicial review. Earlier asylum decision makers had rejected his account on credibility grounds. The Minister relied on those findings when refusing subsidiary protection.
The court rejected challenges to the legal framework and to the Minister’s consideration of the country information, state protection and internal relocation. It held that the Minister was not generally required to reopen credibility findings made in the asylum process, where those findings had not themselves been challenged by judicial review. The court’s role was to assess the legality and rationality of the Minister’s decision, not to rehear the protection claim.
The applicant also argued that the Minister had failed to properly consider a medical report from SPIRASI concerning injuries he said resulted from torture. The judge found that the report did not provide the kind of powerful, specific support present in cases cited by the applicant, and that the decision maker’s treatment of it was not defective or irrational. The court also rejected the challenge based on delay in the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s decision, noting that the Tribunal decision had not been challenged in these proceedings.
On the deportation decision, the judgment noted that the decision maker had considered the medical report, statutory provisions and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court found no ground for granting leave. It concluded that the application failed on all grounds. The judgment concerned whether leave for judicial review should be granted; it did not itself conduct a full rehearing of the protection or deportation decisions.