The High Court has dismissed an asylum applicant’s judicial review challenge to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s treatment of a medical report diagnosing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The court found that the Tribunal had noted the diagnosis and that the report could not corroborate the applicant’s account of events that the Tribunal had found not credible.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as N. R. M. [DRC], argued that the Tribunal had failed to explain why it gave little or no weight to a March 2009 SPIRASI report. The report recorded depression and PTSD, and said an abdominal scar was highly consistent with her account of being stabbed in 2006. Her lawyer submitted that the diagnosis could support her account of detention, torture and rape in March 2008.
The Tribunal had rejected her account on credibility grounds, including inconsistencies in her evidence and concerns about two letters said to be from the Movement for the Liberation of Congo. The court noted that those findings were not challenged in the judicial review. The applicant’s claimed basis for fearing persecution was that government agents sought to have her poison Pastor Kutino in March 2008 and that she was detained and assaulted after refusing.
In a separate development, the respondents brought a late motion to dismiss the proceedings, relying on information from the UK Border Agency that the applicant had held a UK visitor visa and entered the UK in February 2008. In an affidavit, she admitted holding a passport and having travelled to the UK, but said she had returned to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She could not establish that return because, she said, her passport had been stolen. The court said the travel information cast serious doubt on parts of her asylum account.
The court concluded that the Tribunal had correctly noted the PTSD diagnosis and had not disputed it. However, the report did not establish when or what experience caused the PTSD, and the court found it could not corroborate the disputed events of March 2008. It held that any criticism of the Tribunal’s limited explanation for the weight given to the diagnosis was insufficient to invalidate an otherwise sound decision.
The judicial review therefore failed. The court said it was unnecessary to decide whether the applicant’s lack of candour warranted striking out the proceedings, so the respondents’ motion was not determined.