The High Court granted G.Y. leave to seek judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision that upheld a recommendation not to recognise him as a refugee. Mr Justice John Edwards said there were substantial grounds to argue that the tribunal’s credibility assessment was legally flawed. The ruling did not decide the full judicial review or determine G.Y.’s refugee claim.
The tribunal had rejected G.Y.’s appeal on credibility grounds. He argued that it misunderstood his account, mishandled discrepancies in a medical report and failed to consider whether he faced future persecution even if parts of his account were doubted. The State opposed the challenge, saying the court should not substitute its view of the facts for that of the specialist tribunal.
The court identified several arguable errors. It said the tribunal appeared to have treated G.Y. as someone who reported a minister’s alleged homosexual activity to police, whereas his case was that police sought him at the minister’s instigation and that he was a victim. In that context, the court said, the criminal provision cited by the tribunal could support rather than undermine his account.
The judge also said the tribunal did not appear to address G.Y.’s explanation that the medical certificate before it was a replacement for an earlier lost report. The court noted that the certificate’s account of a ten-day hospital stay differed from G.Y.’s account of five days, but said that discrepancy alone did not justify treating his testimony as incredible. The judge also found that the tribunal had misstated why G.Y. said he was hospitalised and had not referred to the report’s contents, which the court said prima facie supported his account of rape.
The court further considered that the tribunal appeared to have ended its assessment of possible future persecution because of doubts about credibility. It said the tribunal should have taken a forward-looking approach.
Leave was granted only on relevant grounds concerning those issues. The judge refused leave on claims that the tribunal failed to consider all country-of-origin information or used it selectively, finding that substantial grounds had not been advanced. The appropriate standard of review, including whether anxious scrutiny applied, was left for argument at the full hearing. The judge said his approach for the leave application would not bind the court hearing the substantive case.