The High Court quashed a deportation order after finding that officials wrongly represented the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s decision about the applicant’s Ahmadi faith. The court said the tribunal had rejected his claim to be a preacher, but had not found that he was not a member of the Ahmadi community.
Mr Justice Colm Mac Eochaidh gave judgment on 21 December 2012 in K A’s judicial review challenge to the Minister for Justice and Law Reform’s deportation order. The applicant had also sought to challenge decisions refusing refugee status and subsidiary protection, but those claims were not pursued and were not before the court on the leave granted.
The respondents argued that the specific ground allowed at the leave stage was new and out of time under the 14-day limit for challenges to deportation orders. The judge rejected that argument. He held that the ground was already encompassed by the original challenge, which alleged, among other things, that the Minister had relied unduly on earlier asylum decisions and had made an unreasoned or irrational assessment of refoulement. The proceedings were therefore brought in time, and the respondents’ application to set aside leave was refused.
On the substantive issue, the court examined the tribunal decision alongside the officials’ recommendations to the Minister. Those recommendations said the tribunal had found that the applicant was not a member of the Ahmadi community. The tribunal decision recorded his claim to be Ahmadi and focused its credibility concerns on whether he was a prominent member and preacher. It concluded that it did not accept he was a preacher; the High Court found no corresponding conclusion that he was not Ahmadi.
The applicant had claimed that Ahmadi Muslims faced disadvantages and persecution in Pakistan, and that he faced a blasphemy charge carrying a potential death penalty because of his preaching. The judgment recounts those as claims, not findings that the applicant had been persecuted or faced a particular outcome.
The judge found that officials had erroneously told the Minister the tribunal disbelieved the applicant’s Ahmadi membership. Because the Minister could deport only if satisfied the applicant would not be sent into harm’s way, the mistaken account undermined the rationality of the decision. The court granted an order quashing the deportation order. It did not determine the unpursued challenges to the refugee-status or subsidiary-protection decisions.