The High Court has refused an Egyptian man leave to seek judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting his application for refugee status. The court found a flaw in the Tribunal’s internal relocation reasoning but held that it did not justify quashing the overall decision.
The case was heard as a “telescoped” application, combining the application for leave with the judicial review proceedings. Mr Justice Mac Eochaidh delivered judgment on 11 April 2014. The challenged Tribunal decision, made on 22 June 2010, had refused the man refugee status after considering his appeal on the papers, without an oral hearing.
The applicant said he had arrived in Ireland by boat in February 2006 and delayed seeking asylum because acquaintances told him he would be deported. He claimed he feared the family of a young woman in Egypt with whom he had a relationship outside marriage. He said her family had threatened him after she became pregnant, that she was later killed, and that his nephew was subsequently kidnapped. These were his claims; the Tribunal did not accept his account as generally credible.
The High Court rejected challenges concerning the Tribunal’s treatment of his passport, his delay in applying for asylum, state protection, the nephew’s alleged kidnapping, the appeal materials and a psychological report. The judge noted that the maritime passport had been returned to the applicant’s solicitor before his asylum interview, but the applicant did not address the identity-document issue in his appeal submissions after it was raised in an ORAC report. The judge said the Tribunal was entitled to assess the material before it and that an application for readmission to the asylum process was the appropriate route to address the applicant’s error.
The Tribunal had separately concluded that the applicant could relocate within Egypt, referring to the country’s population and his being young and single. The High Court said the Tribunal should have identified a particular area where he could reasonably be expected to live. It described that omission as a flaw, but found it could be severed from the Tribunal’s independent credibility findings and was not serious enough to warrant certiorari.
The court therefore refused leave to seek judicial review. It did not grant refugee status or order the Tribunal decision to be quashed.