The High Court dismissed two judicial review proceedings brought by an anonymised South African married couple challenging the rejection of their international protection appeals.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys gave judgment on 31 July 2019. The couple had travelled to the UK between December 2015 and February 2016 without claiming asylum there, then returned to South Africa. They came to Ireland on 9 May 2016 and applied for international protection that day. The International Protection Office refused both claims, and each applicant appealed to the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT).
The tribunal held a joint hearing after offering the couple either separate back-to-back hearings or a joint hearing in which each would leave during the other’s oral evidence. Their counsel told the tribunal they were willing to do that. The tribunal later issued a single decision rejecting both appeals, while stating that it had assessed each claim individually.
The couple argued that excluding each from part of the joint hearing breached procedural rights, and that the tribunal lacked authority to issue a joint decision. The judge rejected those arguments. He said the applicants remained represented by a legal adviser throughout, and that the tribunal could consider whether one spouse’s evidence might be influenced by hearing the other’s. He also found that the regulations permitting joint hearings implied that a joint decision in one document was permissible. He concluded that neither applicant suffered injustice from the procedure.
The judgment records that the tribunal identified inconsistencies and other credibility concerns in both accounts. The judge held that the tribunal was entitled to make its adverse credibility findings, describing the weight given to evidence as a matter for the tribunal member.
The applicants also challenged the tribunal’s assessment of future risk, including its treatment of possible non-violent xenophobia. The judge found that the tribunal had expressly considered future risk and had assessed whether there was a risk of persecution or serious harm. He said the tribunal’s reference to violence, read in context, did not make its decision unlawful.
The proceedings were filed a month out of time. The judge said there were insufficient particulars to establish good and sufficient reason to extend the deadline, but did not decide that issue because the applications failed on their merits. He dismissed both proceedings.