The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting a Ghanaian man’s asylum claim, finding that the Tribunal did not clearly decide whether he had been persecuted by his father and did not adequately assess internal relocation.
In a judgment delivered on 2 May 2013, Mr Justice Colm Mac Eochaidh granted leave in the judicial review proceedings and remitted the matter for a rehearing. The ruling concerns the lawfulness of the Tribunal’s decision; the court did not decide the applicant’s asylum claim or determine that the alleged persecution occurred.
The applicant said his father, a Muslim elder, objected to his conversion from Islam to Christianity and his relationship with a Christian woman. He alleged that his first child was killed, his house was burned and he received threats. He suspected his father’s involvement in the child’s death. The judgment records that he left Ghana in 2007 and later sought asylum in Ireland.
The applicant challenged the Tribunal’s handling of his core claim, its credibility findings and its treatment of internal relocation. The judge observed that the Tribunal had not stated whether the applicant converted to Christianity. That omission alone did not invalidate the decision, but the Tribunal needed to explain clearly whether it rejected the account of persecution and why.
The judge found problems with several credibility findings. He said the finding that the applicant could not credibly have been raised by a Christian uncle despite his father’s Muslim faith failed to address the applicant’s explanation. Another finding overlooked his explanation for why his mother, who had also converted, was not persecuted. The judge said the Tribunal was factually mistaken in saying the applicant had not complained to police about their inaction after the child’s death: the applicant had made such a complaint. A finding that items had been omitted from the asylum questionnaire was too vague because the Tribunal did not identify those items.
The Tribunal had described the alleged persecution as vague and the account of the father’s involvement in the child’s death as supposition. The judge said the persecution allegations included concrete examples and that the central question was whether the account was credible. He noted that lawful credibility findings might have answered the complaint about the assessment of the core claim.
On relocation, the Tribunal had said only that the applicant had an option to move elsewhere in Ghana. The judge held that this did not show an assessment of whether the specific risk would exist at the proposed destination. He said a detailed relocation assessment would have been necessary only if the Tribunal accepted a well-founded fear of persecution; in this case, its brief relocation statement was unnecessary and legally inadequate.
The court quashed the Tribunal’s decision and sent the case back for a rehearing.