The High Court has refused a mother and daughter leave to seek judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing refugee status, finding that their three arguments did not establish substantial grounds. Because the hearing was conducted in a “telescoped” manner, the court did not go on to consider substantive judicial review remedies.
The applicants, identified in the judgment as R. T.K. and C. C. K., challenged the Tribunal’s decision of 7 January 2009 affirming the Refugee Applications Commissioner’s negative recommendation on the mother’s claim. They sought to quash the decision, have the case returned for a new hearing before another Tribunal member, and secure a declaration that the daughter could make an individual asylum application.
The mother’s account included claims that rebel soldiers raped her during a robbery while she worked in Abidjan, and that rebels later killed her brother and father after her brother refused to join them. She said she fled to Ghana before travelling to Ireland. The Tribunal rejected her account primarily on credibility grounds and also considered that changed conditions in Ivory Coast weakened any fear of return. Those were prior administrative assessments, not findings made afresh by the High Court.
The applicants argued that the Tribunal had failed to apply a rule treating past persecution or serious harm as an indication of future risk. The judge found that the Tribunal had considered the rape allegation and rationally treated it as a random criminal attack unconnected to the claimed persecution. He rejected this challenge.
They also argued that the Tribunal lacked jurisdiction to include the daughter, who arrived in Ireland after the Commissioner had decided the mother’s claim. The judge followed an earlier substantive High Court decision that a dependent child could be covered by a parent’s application where no separate fear of persecution had been advanced. He found no basis to distinguish that decision in this case.
Finally, the applicants challenged credibility findings about the mother’s hospitalisation, a DVD said to show her brother’s killing, and her failure to seek asylum in Ghana. The judge concluded that the Tribunal had given clear and rational reasons on each issue, including the inconsistencies about where she was hospitalised and the lack of evidence identifying the person shown in the DVD as her brother.
The court refused leave to seek judicial review. It did not decide whether the applicants were entitled to the substantive remedies they had requested.