The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing to recognise a Democratic Republic of Congo national as a refugee and remitted his appeal for a fresh hearing before a different tribunal member.
In a judgment delivered on 23 July 2015, Ms Justice Stewart said the applicant’s claim had not received proper and due consideration in the appeal process. The court ordered certiorari and directed that the appeal be reconsidered de novo. It did not decide whether the applicant was entitled to refugee status.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as A.T. (DRC), sought judicial review of the tribunal’s 2011 decision. He claimed he had been persecuted, imprisoned and tortured in the DRC because of his membership of the UDPS political party. The tribunal rejected his account on credibility grounds.
The applicant argued that the tribunal had not adequately explained its treatment of supporting documents, country of origin information and a medical report from Spirasi. He also challenged the tribunal’s reliance on his failure to seek asylum in France or the Republic of Congo, where he said he had travelled before arriving in Ireland.
The respondents maintained that the tribunal’s credibility findings were reasoned and should be read as a whole. They argued that the medical report could not displace the adverse findings and that the applicant’s explanations about his journey did not make the decision unlawful.
Justice Stewart found that the applicant had offered explanations for not seeking asylum in France or Congo-Brazzaville, and that proper regard should have been given to them. She also said the tribunal’s statement that it had considered the Spirasi report “in the round” did not show that it had engaged with the report’s contents.
The judgment noted that the report described the applicant as a difficult historian and said this could be associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. The judge said that where evidence was, on its face, supportive of the claim, clear and cogent reasons were required if it was rejected. The tribunal was obliged to engage with the evidence and give reasons for rejecting it.
The court’s role was to assess whether the process was fair and the evidence considered. Because credibility had been assessed cumulatively, the judge was not satisfied that the claim had received proper consideration. The tribunal’s refugee-status decision was therefore quashed, and the appeal was sent back for fresh consideration by a different member.