The High Court has granted a married couple leave to seek judicial review on one ground concerning the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s treatment of the mother’s asylum appeal compared with their son’s. It refused leave on the couple’s other grounds.
Mr Justice Hedigan’s ruling, delivered on 27 November 2008, concerned tribunal decisions in June 2006 upholding earlier recommendations that the parents should not be recognised as refugees. The judgment was a leave application, not a final decision quashing those tribunal decisions.
The couple are identified in the judgment only as E.G. and D.G. It says they are Croatian and Serbian nationals, of Croat and Serb ethnicity respectively, and had lived in Croatia before moving to Serbia in 1991. They claimed that their family faced harassment and discrimination in both countries. The couple’s son was granted refugee status in Ireland after a separate appeal was allowed in September 2005.
The parents argued that the tribunal had inadequately assessed whether Croatia could protect ethnic Serbs, failed to consider what might happen if they were returned to Serbia, made a material factual error, and failed to explain the different outcomes in the family’s appeals. The respondents opposed the application, arguing that the tribunal had properly considered the country information and that each person’s case had to be assessed individually.
The judge rejected the first three grounds at the leave stage. He found that the tribunal had considered the country information as a whole and could reasonably conclude that Croatia had a system for protecting ethnic Serbs. Because the parents had not been found to face a well-founded fear of persecution in Croatia, he said there was no obligation to assess the position in Serbia. He also treated a reference to Serbia in the tribunal decision as a typographical error that did not affect its reasoning or jurisdiction.
On the remaining ground, the judge said the medical evidence concerning the mother and son appeared strikingly similar. He found it at least arguable that, where the tribunal member was or ought to have been aware of the son’s successful appeal, she should have addressed that decision and explained why the mother’s appeal reached a different result. The court granted leave only on whether equality and fair procedures required the tribunal member to address that difference and give reasons. The judgment did not determine that the mother was entitled to refugee status or that the tribunal’s decision must ultimately be quashed.