The High Court has quashed Refugee Appeals Tribunal decisions rejecting the refugee appeals of an Albanian mother and her minor son, finding serious flaws in the assessment of credibility, supporting documents and state protection. The cases were remitted to the Tribunal for determination by a different member.
The judicial review concerned decisions dated 2 March 2010, which had affirmed recommendations that neither applicant be declared a refugee. The mother and son had made separate asylum applications, but their claims concerned the same alleged blood feud between the mother’s extended family and the Yzeiri family in Albania.
The mother claimed that her family faced threats and attacks, that they moved to Greece in 2000, and that she and her son later left Greece for Ireland. The Tribunal rejected her account as not credible. In the High Court, she challenged the reasoning behind that assessment and the Tribunal’s conclusions about whether she could obtain protection in Albania.
The court found that parts of the Tribunal’s reasoning about her knowledge of the feud and the Kanun, and her father’s role in reconciliation efforts, were flawed. It also found that the Tribunal’s reasoning about her failure to seek asylum in Greece was irrational because she had arrived there as a child and later had residency through her marriage. The Tribunal had not adequately assessed her stated reasons for leaving Greece.
The judge also concluded that several adverse credibility findings rested on speculation. These included suggestions that the mother could have used €10,000 to seek reconciliation, that killings of family members may have appeased the other family, that her married name reduced the risk to her, and that her parents would be targeted before her.
The court found that the Tribunal had not adequately explained its rejection of a letter from the mayor of the applicant’s home municipality. The letter said the family remained involved in a blood feud and that the children had emigrated to escape it. The judge considered that it could corroborate a core part of the claim and required proper assessment.
On state protection, the Tribunal had relied on country information indicating that protection was available, while overlooking contrary material in the same research compilation describing protection for people affected by blood feuds as “rather little” and “marginal.” The court also noted evidence that the mother’s father had reported an attack to police, contrary to the Tribunal’s finding that the family had taken no steps to seek protection.
The court quashed the Tribunal’s decisions in both judicial review cases and remitted the matters for fresh determination by a different Tribunal member. It did not itself decide whether either applicant qualified for refugee status.