The High Court has refused to certify a point of law for appeal to the Supreme Court in a judicial review case involving the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s treatment of country of origin information.
In a judgment delivered on 30 November 2007, Mr Justice Edwards said the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal had applied for a certificate under section 5(3)(a) of the Illegal Immigrants Trafficking Act 2000. The application followed an earlier High Court judgment in July. The source identifies the applicant only as D.V.T.S.
The proposed question was whether a tribunal member who said he had considered all submitted documents had to explain in the decision why he preferred some country information over other material.
Mr Justice Edwards said a tribunal must consider all the evidence and, where it prefers one item over another in a significant conflict, give clear reasons. He said this was especially important for country information used in refugee appeals, which may be hearsay, opinion-based, untested, and drawn from sources with varying authority. A tribunal could prefer some material, he said, but should do so for good, substantial, reasonable and rational reasons, and make its assessment transparent.
The judge said the July decision had applied established principles and was not new or radical. Although the proposed question could involve an issue of public importance, he was not satisfied that it was of such exceptional public importance that an appeal was desirable in the public interest. He therefore declined to certify the point.
The judgment records only the refusal of the certificate application. It does not revisit or set out the July judgment’s operative orders.