The High Court quashed a decision rejecting an Albanian mother’s and her three children’s appeals against the refusal of international protection, finding that the tribunal’s treatment of country information about risks to political journalists was flawed. The appeals must be reconsidered by a different tribunal member.
In a judgment delivered on 21 October 2019, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys said the International Protection Appeals Tribunal’s decision of 12 December 2018 was unacceptably unclear about whether it considered political journalists in Albania faced a risk of persecution. The court also found that the tribunal’s wording suggested an unduly high test for assessing future risk.
The mother said she had worked as a journalist in Albania from 2008 and faced threats, particularly after reporting on electoral corruption. The tribunal had accepted that she worked part time for a news organisation from October 2008 to April 2009 and wrote an article about electoral corruption, but did not accept that she was a “key political journalist.” The High Court said a person did not have to be a key journalist to face a risk.
The tribunal had stated that there was no country of origin information showing the mother “will be persecuted” if she pursued a full-time journalism career in Albania. The judge said the most natural reading was that the tribunal believed there was no information indicating that political journalists faced persecution there. The judgment pointed to material before the tribunal, including a 2017 US State Department report that referred to intimidation of journalists driven by financial and political interests and pervasive corruption in government.
The court said the tribunal’s assessment of the mother’s claim of past persecution was also affected by its mistaken approach to country information. The judge noted that important parts of her account had been accepted and that the tribunal had linked its findings on past and future risk.
The proceedings concerned only the tribunal’s decision on the protection appeals. The High Court ordered certiorari quashing that decision and remitted the appeals for reconsideration by a different tribunal member. It did not decide the protection claims itself.
The judgment also discussed an outstanding application for review of a separate decision refusing permission to remain. That decision was not specifically challenged in these proceedings; the review application had yet to be decided at the time of judgment.