The High Court has refused an application to quash a decision rejecting a Zimbabwean woman’s appeal for refugee status, finding that the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s credibility findings were rational and supported by the evidence before it.
In a judgment delivered on 23 January 2015, Mr Justice Barr refused the applicant’s application for certiorari of the tribunal’s decision of 21 June 2010. The case was a “telescoped” application for leave to seek judicial review. The court did not grant refugee status or make a new determination of her asylum claim.
The woman, anonymised in the judgment as S.M., said she feared persecution in Zimbabwe because of her involvement with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). She alleged that authorities had beaten and interrogated her, and that she was assaulted after her employer’s haulage company transported food aid for non-governmental organisations. She also said she was HIV positive and feared she would be denied treatment because of her political views. These were her claims, not findings by the court.
The tribunal had rejected her account on credibility grounds. Among other points, it questioned her inability to name organisations that had contracted her employer, her account of waking at home after being taken to a farm and beaten, her failure to seek asylum during stays in the UK, South Africa and France, and the passport she said she used to travel. A Garda Technical Bureau examination found the submitted passport genuine apart from its counterfeit biographical data page. The tribunal also gave limited weight to her MDC membership card and supporting documents.
Mr Justice Barr held that the tribunal was entitled to make several of its adverse credibility findings, including those concerning the haulage work, the farm incident, her failure to seek asylum in the UK and elsewhere, and the passport evidence. He also found that the tribunal had reasonably declined to request further information about the Garda examiner’s qualifications, given that the applicant had not obtained a counter-analysis or called the examiner to give evidence.
The court addressed her claim that the tribunal had failed to make a clear finding on whether she was an MDC member. It held that this omission was not fatal in this case: there was no compelling evidence that HIV treatment would be withheld because of MDC membership. The tribunal had found evidence of preferential treatment for Zanu-PF officials, but the court said that did not establish that MDC members were denied medication for their political opinions.
The applicant had also argued that the tribunal’s reasons were inadequate, that it failed to assess her future risk, and that it did not properly weigh country information about HIV treatment and political persecution. The court was satisfied overall that the tribunal’s findings were rational and supported by the evidence. It therefore refused to quash the 2010 decision.