The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing refugee status to an anonymised Moldovan applicant, finding that the tribunal did not answer the specific question it had been directed to consider: whether the country’s Ombudsman could reasonably provide him with effective protection from police corruption.
Mr Justice Barr delivered judgment on 3 March 2015 in judicial review proceedings brought by E.P. (Moldova). He ordered that the tribunal’s decision of 10 October 2012 be quashed and that the matter be returned to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal for determination by another tribunal member.
The applicant’s account, as set out in the judgment, was that he had encountered corruption while serving as a police officer in Moldova, reported it to authorities and later faced demands for bribes and fabricated charges. He said he left the police, and subsequently Moldova, after fearing for his safety. The tribunal had previously accepted that he experienced trouble and appeared to have been harassed by police, and accepted his account that false charges had been brought against him.
An earlier High Court ruling quashed the tribunal’s first decision on state protection grounds and remitted the issue to the same tribunal member. That ruling said an asylum seeker must take reasonable steps to seek protection at home, but need not pursue every possible avenue or go to extraordinary or unreasonable lengths. It directed the tribunal to consider whether effective protection might reasonably be available from the Ombudsman’s Office.
On reconsideration, the tribunal member concluded that a system of effective state protection was available. She considered country-of-origin information about the Ombudsman’s work and said it was reasonable for the applicant to make a complaint. She also said she could not conclude that protection was unavailable when he had not given the Ombudsman an opportunity to review his complaint.
The applicant argued in the judicial review that this repeated the error identified in the earlier ruling. He said the tribunal had assessed whether the Ombudsman was functioning generally, rather than whether it could protect him from police corruption, and had not properly addressed information about complaints and investigations. The respondents argued that the tribunal had considered the available information and that the Ombudsman could examine complaints about public authorities and refer matters for action.
Justice Barr held that the tribunal had failed to answer the question put to it. The judgment said the required assessment was whether the Ombudsman’s Office was effective in dealing with complaints against police officers accused of corruption. Because the tribunal relied on the applicant’s failure to complain to the Ombudsman as a reason it could not find protection unavailable, it had not made that assessment.
The court’s order quashed the 10 October 2012 decision and remitted the question to a different tribunal member. The judgment does not itself determine whether the applicant is entitled to refugee status or whether effective protection is available in Moldova.