The High Court refused a Somali asylum applicant’s judicial review challenge to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s decision upholding the refusal of his refugee application. Mr Justice Barr extended the time for bringing the proceedings, but found no error in the Tribunal’s assessment of the evidence.
The applicant said he was born in 1985 and came from Mogadishu, where he belonged to the Reer-Hamar ethnic group. He claimed that an armed militia killed members of his family in an attack in 1998, shot him in the leg and left him unconscious. He said he later lived in Ethiopia, Yemen and Saudi Arabia before travelling to Ireland in 2008.
A language analysis report prepared after a Somali-language interview concluded that he spoke Somali at mother-tongue level, using a Reer-Hamar dialect associated with southern Somalia, including Mogadishu. It also noted his local knowledge of the area he said he came from.
The Tribunal rejected his account, citing, among other matters, a valid Yemeni passport and Irish visa used for travel, a visa application bearing a signature it considered similar to his, and what it regarded as problems with his account of funding the journey and being arrested after boarding a boat in Belfast. The applicant denied that the passport was his and disputed the signature comparison. The Tribunal upheld the recommendation that he should not be declared a refugee.
In the High Court, the applicant argued that the Tribunal had not properly weighed the language report or explained why its supportive findings did not alter its assessment. He also argued that it had failed to determine his nationality and ethnicity. The respondents submitted that the Tribunal had considered the report as part of the evidence as a whole and that the weight given to it was for the Tribunal.
Mr Justice Barr said the Tribunal had to weigh the language report alongside the other evidence, including information from UK authorities that the Yemeni passport was valid. The report supported the applicant’s account but did not establish that he was a Somali national or corroborate his account of leaving Somalia after the 1998 attack and his subsequent occupations. The judge held that the Tribunal was entitled to assess the credibility of the account and the weight of the report. He found no error in its approach and refused the requested relief.
The Tribunal decision was issued on 21 January 2010, and the judicial review proceedings were brought outside the statutory 14-day period. The judge accepted that the legal-aid process and related steps provided good and sufficient reasons for the delay, and extended the time limit through the date the motion issued. That extension allowed the challenge to proceed; it did not change the refusal of relief.