The High Court has refused an application for judicial review challenging the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s recommendation that a Pakistani applicant be refused refugee status.
In a judgment delivered on 25 November 2014, Mr Justice Robert Eagar held that the Tribunal had not erred in the circumstances of the case. He said that even if an error had occurred, it did not go to the heart of the decision so as to make it unlawful. The court refused the relief sought; it did not itself determine the applicant’s entitlement to refugee status.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as P.I.M.K. (Pakistan), said he was an Ahmadi Muslim and feared persecution in Pakistan. He claimed that a man in Gujarat had threatened him and sought to take his money and land because of his religious minority status. He said he left Pakistan for Bahrain around 2007, later travelling to Ireland, where he applied for asylum in August 2010.
The Refugee Appeals Tribunal had found the claim not credible. It relied on issues including the applicant’s travel route and failure to seek protection in Amsterdam, and said there was no evidence establishing that he was Ahmadi. The Tribunal also considered the claimed threat to be connected to property and a refusal to sell, rather than a Convention ground. It concluded that the applicant had not established a fear of persecution on a Convention ground and that relocation in Pakistan would not be unduly harsh.
The judicial review challenged the Tribunal’s assessment of the evidence, including its treatment of alleged past persecution and internal relocation. The judgment also records evidence that the applicant had denied applying for a UK visa during his asylum interview, while a UK Border Agency letter later reported a fingerprint match to a refused visa application made in Abu Dhabi in July 2009. The applicant said in a supplemental affidavit that he had denied it because he feared his asylum application would not be examined and he would be returned to Pakistan.
Justice Eagar cited the limits of judicial review: the court’s role was to assess whether the decision-making process was legally sound, not to substitute its own view on credibility. Applying that approach, he refused the application.