The High Court dismissed an application by A.A. (Pakistan) for leave to appeal its earlier rejection of a challenge to an International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) decision.
In a judgment delivered on 11 February 2019, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys considered three proposed questions said to raise exceptional public importance. He concluded that none justified granting leave. The order was to dismiss the application; the court was not deciding a new challenge to the underlying IPAT decision at this stage.
The first proposed question concerned whether the United Kingdom’s former fast-track procedure for asylum claims should affect how an applicant’s failure to seek protection there was assessed. The judge said the issue was fact-specific and for the tribunal to weigh in an individual case. He also noted that the procedure was described as former and that he had not ruled that it was irrelevant. The applicant’s evidence was that he had travelled to the UK to study and had legal advice there; the judge said the case was not one in which he had established that fear of the procedure deterred an intended asylum claim.
The second question concerned when an international protection decision-maker must investigate the authenticity of a document submitted by an applicant. The judge said he had addressed the issue in another case earlier that month and that the proposed question fundamentally misunderstood European Convention law.
The third question concerned whether the benefit of the doubt should apply to individual material facts or to an applicant’s account as a whole. The judge said the benefit of the doubt applies only where general credibility has been established, and can then apply to a specific part of an account. He said the tribunal had considered material matters but did not extend the benefit of the doubt to unsubstantiated matters because the applicant’s general credibility had not been established.
The judge also said the IPAT decision had listed ten pages of factors weighing against the applicant’s credibility, within a 50-page consideration of the claim. In that context, he concluded that any proposed point would not be decisive and that allowing an appeal would not serve the public interest. The application was dismissed.