The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting an asylum appeal by N.M., an applicant from Togo, after finding that the appeal process lacked basic fairness.
In a judgment delivered on 16 September 2013, Ms Justice M. H. Clark found there was no adequate assurance that the Tribunal had considered the full body of evidence. The court’s order sets aside the challenged Tribunal decision; it does not determine whether N.M. qualifies for asylum or protection.
N.M. said he had been a low-level member of the Union pour la Force du Changement (UFC), an opposition party, and had been detained and tortured in Togo. The Tribunal rejected his account, citing problems with his descriptions of two escapes and gaps in his knowledge of party and electoral matters.
The court said the Tribunal decision did not mention a letter said to be from the UFC’s administrative secretary in Lomé. The letter could have corroborated key parts of N.M.’s account if accepted as authentic, and required assessment and reasons before its validity or content was discounted, the judge said. The decision also failed to assess the medical report as part of the wider documentary evidence. That report described injuries as consistent with N.M.’s account, though the court said its findings were not compelling on their own.
The judge also criticised the reliance on undisclosed country-of-origin information that had a significant impact on the Tribunal’s decision. She said the Tribunal repeated negative findings from an earlier asylum report without addressing whether evidence or explanations at the appeal altered them. The court was concerned that the Tribunal had imposed an unreasonable burden over the level of political knowledge expected of a low-level activist.
The ruling did not accept every ground advanced by N.M. The court said he had not provided evidence showing what submissions or explanations were made at the oral appeal hearing, and it declined to speculate about what might have been said. It also made no decision on whether the Tribunal was obliged to conduct independent enquiries because an applicant might be suffering from stress or depression; that point had not been fully argued.
The court said the decision would be quashed because documents capable of supporting N.M.’s credibility had been ignored, the medical report had been viewed in isolation, positive aspects of his evidence were routinely overlooked, and undisclosed country information had been relied on. The judge indicated that the costs following the quashing would be discounted because N.M. had not supported his assertion that the Tribunal failed to consider submissions.