The High Court has dismissed a Zimbabwean woman’s judicial review challenge to an international protection decision that found she could relocate to Bulawayo. Mr Justice Richard Humphreys ruled on 13 January 2020 that the tribunal’s assessment was not unlawful or irrational.
The International Protection Appeals Tribunal rejected the woman’s appeal on 1 May 2019. It accepted her account of abuse but concluded that an internal protection alternative was available. She sought judicial review, later limiting her claim to partial certiorari of the internal relocation finding, while seeking to preserve the favourable parts of the tribunal decision.
The woman, identified in the judgment as S.T. (Zimbabwe), had claimed that two uncles were involved in rape, assault and abduction between November 2012 and December 2013. The court described these as incidents she claimed. She entered Ireland in February 2014 and applied for asylum. Earlier protection applications were rejected, including a 2016 appeal in which a tribunal member said the applicant had not satisfied it that she had a well-founded fear of persecution.
The court said the 2019 tribunal had given detailed reasons for finding that internal protection was available and had considered the relevant legal test. It reviewed the tribunal’s consideration of Bulawayo, the risk of persecution there, whether it was reasonable for her to stay, general country conditions and her personal circumstances. The judge said the decision was not irrational even if the tribunal could have assessed the evidence more favourably to her.
The tribunal had described her concern as the possibility that she might encounter a cousin who could tell other family members where she was. The judge characterised that concern as speculative. He also rejected the argument that the tribunal’s failure to apply UNHCR internal flight guidelines provided grounds for judicial review, noting that the guidelines are not law.
The judgment records that the woman had been granted residency in 2018 because she was the parent of an Irish citizen child. The judge said this context did not diminish her entitlement to seek asylum or the court’s scrutiny of an adverse decision. The court dismissed the judicial review application; it did not substitute a new protection decision.