The High Court has refused leave for an Afghan applicant to challenge the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s decision rejecting his refugee claim, finding that the Tribunal’s credibility assessment was reasoned and that its alternative internal-relocation finding was open to it.
In a judgment delivered on 11 December 2015, Ms Justice Stewart extended the time for bringing the judicial review. The proceedings had been issued outside the statutory 14-day limit, but the respondents did not oppose an extension and the judge found good and sufficient reasons to grant one.
The applicant said he had been forced to join the Taliban in 2009, worked for its members and fled after his brother was killed and he was beaten. He feared harm from the Taliban, the Afghan government, local villagers and Hezb-e-Islami if returned. Ireland’s Refugee Applications Commissioner accepted that he was from Afghanistan and that he faced a risk from the Taliban, but recommended excluding him from refugee status on the basis of alleged complicity in serious crimes.
The Refugee Appeals Tribunal affirmed the refusal of refugee status on different grounds. It rejected the applicant’s account of his Taliban involvement and the circumstances in which he said he had been forced to join. The Tribunal also found that his fear of Hezb-e-Islami was not well-founded and that a letter said to be from Afghan security forces ordering his arrest was a mock-up. Alternatively, it concluded that relocation to Kabul was feasible.
The applicant argued that the Tribunal had misread interview records, failed to assess the appeal afresh, relied on general credibility conclusions and appeared to have prejudged his evidence. The respondents said the Tribunal had considered contradictions across the interviews and oral hearing, and had given reasons for rejecting the core account.
Justice Stewart described the Refugee Appeals Tribunal appeal as an active rehearing. She held that it was entitled to consider the earlier interviews alongside the appeal evidence, including how the applicant addressed inconsistencies when they were put to him. The High Court’s role in judicial review was not to substitute its view of the evidence for the Tribunal’s.
The judge rejected the claim that the Tribunal had acted on a “gut feeling” or predetermined the case. She found that the decision, read as a whole, showed an independent assessment. Because the Tribunal disbelieved the core account, it was not required to conduct a forward-looking risk assessment; in any event, it had considered future risk on an alternative basis and found relocation to Kabul available. The court found no basis to interfere with that conclusion and refused leave.