The High Court quashed decisions refusing subsidiary protection and leave to remain to an anonymised applicant and ordering his deportation, finding that officials failed to weigh language reports bearing on his claimed Somali nationality against information linking him to Tanzania.
Mr Justice Colm Mac Eochaidh delivered judgment on 18 July 2013 in a judicial review challenge. The applicant claimed to be Somali and said he was Bajuni. The Minister’s decisions treated him as Tanzanian, based in part on UK Border Agency information linking his fingerprints to two visa applications made under another name using a Tanzanian passport.
The applicant argued that he had not been given a chance to address the Tanzania allegation and that officials ignored two expert language reports supporting his claimed identity. The court rejected the first argument: before deciding the subsidiary protection application, the Minister had written to the applicant setting out the UK information and giving him time to respond. His solicitors replied.
The reports by Professor Derek Nurse and Brian Allen had been considered earlier in a separate application to re-enter the asylum process, which was refused. But the court found no evidence they were considered in the subsidiary protection or leave-to-remain decisions. The applicant’s solicitor had referred to the reports in the response to the Tanzania allegation, bringing them into those decision processes. The decision maker should have weighed their conclusions against the UK information, the judge said. Borrowing findings from the separate asylum process did not amount to the fresh assessment required for the subsidiary protection decision.
The Minister also argued that the applicant’s failure to explain the 2001 visa showed a lack of candour that should disentitle him to judicial review. The applicant had explained the 2004 visa, saying he travelled to Tanzania for one day and used a tampered passport. The judge accepted that no explanation had been given for the earlier visa, but said that omission did not amount to bad faith or lack of candour and should not deprive him of a remedy.
The court granted leave to seek judicial review and made final orders quashing the decisions under challenge. It remitted the matters to the decision maker. The judgment did not decide the applicant’s nationality or grant him protection; it required the decisions to be reconsidered lawfully. A copy of the judgment could be provided to officials and the Minister for that reconsideration at the applicant’s election.