The High Court quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing an anonymised applicant’s asylum appeal and sent the appeal back for a rehearing. The court found that an error in the tribunal’s introductory section could have affected its approach to the case and undermined confidence in the fairness of the decision.
The tribunal had refused the appeal on 15 December 2014 following a written procedure. The judgment said the applicant’s asylum application had first been rejected by the Refugee Applications Commissioner after a finding that he had not applied as soon as practicable after arriving in Ireland.
In the tribunal decision’s introduction, however, the member incorrectly stated that the commissioner had rejected the application under a different provision, concerning applications with no or minimal basis. The High Court said the mistake was clear. Although it appeared in the introduction rather than the tribunal’s analysis, the court found it could not safely be separated from the rest of the decision: it might have led the member to approach the appeal on the mistaken basis that the claim had already been found to have no or minimal basis.
The applicant also argued that the tribunal had relied on travel and other matters outside the alleged persecution, and had failed to decide whether his account of persecution was true. The court rejected the argument that a tribunal generally has to make a separate finding on every element of an asylum claim. It held that credibility may be assessed using significant matters such as travel arrangements, identity details and delay in applying, even when they do not directly concern the alleged persecution. The judgment also said that a general rejection of credibility will not always require the tribunal to identify which individual parts of an applicant’s story it accepts or rejects.
The court was not satisfied that the applicant had shown the tribunal failed to consider matters raised in the appeal notice, or that its credibility reasoning was conjectural or irrational. It nevertheless granted judicial review on the introductory error alone, finding that the error had the potential to contaminate the decision overall.
The court ordered certiorari to quash the tribunal’s 2014 decision and remitted the appeal for rehearing. It also allowed the parties to make consequential applications, provided advance particulars are given to the other party.