The High Court has refused an application by a woman identified as OM to quash a decision denying her international protection, finding that the documents omitted from the appeal decision could not have changed the outcome and that the Tribunal’s key credibility findings were open to it.
In a judgment delivered on 31 January 2025, Ms Justice Miriam O’Regan dismissed OM’s judicial review challenge to the International Protection Appeals Tribunal’s decision of 9 May 2023. The Tribunal had found her ineligible for refugee status or subsidiary protection.
OM, who is from Botswana, said her former boyfriend had abused her and threatened her. At interview, she also said he burned her rented home in September 2020 while believing she was inside, and threatened her with a knife a week later. The Tribunal questioned why those events were absent from her written questionnaire. OM said she had run out of space and wanted to explain her claim orally. The Tribunal rejected that explanation as not credible on the balance of probabilities.
The Tribunal also found it not credible that OM could regularly travel to South Africa to attend church while her life was controlled by a violent partner. The High Court held that the Tribunal was entitled to make that finding, noting OM’s response that “God came first” when asked about the freedom to travel.
A separate ground concerned five documents sent to the International Protection Office on 20 March 2023, after the Tribunal hearing. They were not referred to in the decision. OM relied on a medical report diagnosing her son T with autism and a debt demand and proceedings. She argued orally that these supported her account that her former boyfriend disliked her son and that she had suffered financial abuse.
The judge said financial abuse and abuse of OM because of her son’s disability had not formed part of her claim before those oral submissions. The judgment found the two documents were not relevant to the core claim and did not meet the minimum level of materiality. The court was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that their omission could have made no difference to the decision.
The court refused the relief sought. On costs, the judge stated a provisional view that the respondents should receive their costs because they had succeeded. The parties were given 10 days to make written submissions if they disagreed, and the case was listed for final orders on 11 February 2025.