The High Court has quashed a decision affirming the refusal of a Nigerian woman’s asylum application and sent her appeal back for a fresh determination by a different member of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal (RAT).
Ms Justice Stewart made the order after a judicial review hearing on 14 November 2014. Her judgment, delivered on 5 February 2015, said the court was not deciding whether the asylum claim was meritorious. It was examining whether fair procedures had been followed.
The woman, identified in the judgment as B.Y., said she had worked as a police officer in Nigeria and fled after being repeatedly targeted by a criminal gang. She alleged the gang had killed her mother, husband and daughter. She arrived in Ireland in November 2010 and applied for asylum the following day.
The Refugee Applications Commissioner recommended refusing refugee status. The Commissioner found that she had not established a well-founded fear of persecution, had not sufficiently demonstrated that she was a serving police officer in Akure, and lacked supporting knowledge of a significant criminal event in the area. The report also found that information she provided was sufficiently false, contradictory, misleading or incomplete to make the application manifestly unfounded. Under the statutory provision applied, her appeal to the RAT was limited to a paper review without an oral hearing.
The RAT member affirmed the recommendation in a decision dated 1 April 2011. In the judicial review, the applicant argued that the tribunal accepted she had been a police officer but did not address her appeal submissions about the criminal event and how a newspaper report had been put to her in interview. She also challenged further adverse credibility findings made by the tribunal member.
The State opposed that ground, arguing it had not been pleaded in the precise terms advanced at the hearing. Justice Stewart found that the complaint about the lack of an oral hearing and the tribunal’s additional credibility findings was sufficiently present in the applicant’s written submissions to be considered.
The judge endorsed the need for “extreme care” in paper-only appeals, where the tribunal member cannot form a personal impression of the applicant. She held that if the member moved beyond the Commissioner’s findings and made further adverse credibility findings, fairness required the applicant to have an opportunity to be heard or to provide input before the decision.
The court granted leave, quashed the RAT decision and remitted the appeal for determination afresh by a different tribunal member. The remitted appeal remains paper-only because the applicant remains bound by the Commissioner’s statutory finding. The court did not direct how the RAT should provide an opportunity for her views to be heard, leaving the practical arrangements to the tribunal.