The High Court has refused an applicant’s request for extra time and leave to challenge a decision upholding the refusal of refugee status. The court found no good or sufficient reason for either request and made no order as to costs.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as R. A., sought to challenge a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision dated 5 December 2007. The Tribunal had affirmed the Refugee Applications Commissioner’s negative recommendation. The applicant needed an extension because his judicial review proceedings were issued about three months after the 14-day statutory time limit had expired.
The applicant said he feared persecution in Georgia because of claimed involvement with the Revival party in Adjaria, including work as a bodyguard and participation in resistance to the Georgian government in 2004. The judgment recounts that the Commissioner and Tribunal rejected his account on credibility grounds, including the absence of identity documents, his failure to seek asylum in countries he passed through, and a lack of supporting country information for his claim that he would be recognised and targeted.
The applicant argued that the Tribunal had relied on a UK Home Office guidance note about Georgia without giving prior notice. The High Court rejected that complaint: the material point in the note had already appeared in a US State Department report appended to the Commissioner’s report and relied on in the applicant’s appeal.
He also argued that the Tribunal’s assessment of state protection failed to address his asserted fear of the Georgian government. The court said that argument could have merit if past persecution or a real risk on return had been accepted. But it found that the Tribunal’s decision rested on other credibility findings, including that the applicant’s evidence ran counter to the country information and that he had provided no evidence at the appeal stage to show that ordinary Revival party members faced difficulties or that he would be identified and targeted. The state protection assessment was therefore redundant to the decision, which the court found otherwise legally sound.
The court noted that personal circumstances explained delay until early February 2008, but no explanation had been offered for the further eight-week delay before proceedings were issued on 2 April. After considering the merits and the interests of justice, it refused both the extension of time and leave to apply for judicial review. The refusal concerned permission to bring the challenge; the court did not quash or otherwise alter the Tribunal’s decision.