The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing a Cameroonian man’s refugee claim, finding that the tribunal breached fair procedures by relying on a membership card without giving him a chance to address the concerns it raised.
Mr Justice Barr ruled on 2 December 2014 that the tribunal’s adverse credibility assessment was unsafe. He remitted the case for consideration by a different tribunal member. The court did not decide whether the applicant qualified for refugee status.
The applicant said he had fled Cameroon after his father, whom he described as a Social Democratic Front member, was shot dead, and after he was detained and mistreated while seeking an investigation. He said he feared the people responsible would find and kill him. Those were his claims; the High Court did not determine whether the events occurred.
The tribunal had rejected his account on several credibility grounds, including differences between his accounts of alleged mistreatment in prison and questions about his claimed involvement with the SDF. It also relied on a Ndum Christian Youth Association membership card dated 26 December 2006 and signed by both the applicant and the group’s president on the same day.
The applicant said he had been in Yaoundé at the time, having left Ndum and later Belo because he feared being found. The tribunal reasoned that the card either indicated he had returned to Ndum or that he had allowed people there to know where he was, undermining his account of fearing discovery. The High Court considered that reasoning open to the tribunal on the evidence before it.
But the card had not been raised with the applicant at his tribunal hearing. The judge held that, because the tribunal treated it as undermining the core of his asylum account, fairness required that he be given an opportunity to respond. The failure to do so flawed the tribunal’s assessment of that central issue.
The applicant had also challenged a nine-month gap between his appeal hearing and the tribunal decision. The High Court rejected that ground, concluding he had not shown that the delay adversely affected the decision. The successful challenge was the failure to put the membership-card issue to him.