The High Court has refused an application to quash a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting a Sierra Leonean woman’s asylum appeal. Mr Justice Eagar said the Tribunal’s credibility findings could stand independently of concerns he had about its assessment of state protection.
The applicant sought certiorari quashing the Tribunal’s decision of 13 December 2010 and an injunction preventing her deportation while the case was pending. The judgment records that she said she had come to Ireland in 2006 and claimed she had been forced to live with a rebel, L.S., who raped and abused her. She said she had three children with him, that they were taken from her, and that she feared he would kill her if she returned.
The Tribunal rejected her appeal after identifying several credibility concerns. Among them, it considered it difficult to understand why she could not name the rebel group L.S. belonged to after saying she had lived with him for nine years. It also questioned her account that a woman she knew only as Sisi arranged and paid for their journey by boat to Ireland, and noted the lack of reports about L.S. despite the claim that he was a well-known rebel. The Tribunal also considered that medical reports had not been provided to support her account of how scars were caused.
The applicant’s counsel argued that the credibility findings relied on conjecture and that the Tribunal had applied the wrong test to state protection and internal relocation. The respondents’ counsel maintained that the findings were reasoned and substantial. She argued that any flaw in state-protection or relocation analysis could be separated from the credibility findings.
Mr Justice Eagar reviewed the credibility assessment under the principles governing judicial review. He concluded that the Tribunal had given clear, intelligible and rational reasons for its findings, based on issues central to the applicant’s account. He said those findings were sufficient to deal with the appeal.
The judge was not completely satisfied with the Tribunal’s state-protection findings, observing that the information cited about prosecutions for war crimes raised questions about whether the state could protect citizens. He nevertheless held that this issue could be severed from the distinct credibility findings. He considered the Tribunal’s conclusion that internal relocation to Freetown was viable clear and cogent.
The court refused certiorari. The judgment does not record a separate decision on the requested deportation injunction.