The High Court refused an application for leave to seek judicial review of a decision affirming a recommendation that an applicant not be declared a refugee.
In an ex tempore judgment delivered on 14 July 2016, Mr Justice Colm Mac Eochaidh said the applicant had not shown substantial grounds for arguing that the decision was unlawful. The application concerned a decision dated 23 May 2006 by the Refugee Appeals Tribunal.
The judgment records that the applicant, anonymised as D. N. G., said he had suffered a mob attack in Malawi in June 2013, in which his grandparents were killed and he was left unconscious. The decision under challenge accepted that a SPIRASI medical report found his scars consistent with his account of a prolonged attack. It also said the report could not establish the circumstances of the attack. The decision maker raised credibility concerns about the applicant’s account, including his explanation of how a priest began receiving threatening messages, discrepancies about when he left school, and his account of his involvement in witchcraft.
The applicant argued that the decision maker had failed to give adequate reasons for rejecting the SPIRASI report and had disregarded a Malawian police report. The judge said the decision did not reject the medical report: it expressly accepted its findings. He also noted that the police report was listed among the submitted documents and that the decision said all material submitted had been considered. Both grounds failed to meet the threshold for leave.
The court also rejected an argument based on protection regulations concerning past persecution or serious harm. The judge said the relevant provisions did not apply where the applicant’s account had been disbelieved on credibility grounds. He further explained that “serious harm” under the regulations had a specific legal meaning, and no argument establishing harm within that definition had been advanced.
A final ground challenged the internal relocation assessment, alleging that the decision maker had selected a town where the applicant’s uncle lived as a safe place to relocate. The judge found that this was a mistaken reading of the decision. It had concluded that the applicant could live anywhere in Malawi outside his home village, rather than requiring him to move to the uncle’s town. No challenge had been made to that broader approach in the proceedings.
Having rejected all grounds advanced for leave, the court refused the application. It did not determine a full judicial review claim on its merits.