The High Court has quashed a decision refusing international protection to a Pakistani woman and remitted her case to a new tribunal for fresh consideration. The court did not decide whether she is entitled to refugee or subsidiary protection.
The woman, identified in the judgment as S.S., challenged the International Protection Appeals Tribunal’s 2019 decision affirming a recommendation that she receive neither form of protection. She argued that the tribunal used the wrong test for future risk of persecution or serious harm and failed to give adequate reasons for several findings.
Mr Justice Barr said the tribunal’s wording left it unclear whether it had applied the balance of probabilities to the future-risk question. The applicable test, he said, was whether there was a reasonable likelihood that the applicant would face persecution or serious harm if returned to Pakistan. Because the tribunal’s assessment was fundamental to its decision, the court could not be sure the correct test had been used.
The judge also found that the tribunal had not explained why it rejected substantial country-of-origin information submitted by the applicant about risks to women in Pakistan, including women who live alone or adopt western dress and ways of life. The court said the tribunal had to give reasons when rejecting relevant, prima facie credible information of that kind.
The tribunal had also failed to address whether the applicant’s claimed adoption of western dress and lifestyle could make her a “refugee sur place” under section 29 of the International Protection Act 2015. The judge said the issue required specific consideration in light of her circumstances, her family’s past harassment and the country information submitted.
The court further held that the tribunal had not adequately explained its conclusion that the applicant moved from the UK to Ireland for economic reasons. The applicant said she came to care for her sister and brother-in-law, whose mental health difficulties the tribunal had accepted. The judge noted that she had been lawfully studying in the UK and that the tribunal had not explained why abandoning those studies to move to Ireland was economically favourable.
The High Court did not accept every challenge. It found that the tribunal could take account of the applicant’s delay in seeking protection after arriving in Ireland, where she applied in November 2016. It also held that she did not have to show she was more at risk than other people, or that she had performed an exceptional act, to establish a protection claim.
The court quashed the tribunal’s decision of 25 November 2019 and ordered the matter remitted to a new tribunal. The applicant’s protection claim remains for fresh consideration.