The High Court has granted M. M. A. leave to challenge the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s refusal of his asylum appeal, finding substantial grounds concerning its treatment of medical evidence and reports about attacks in Darfur. The ruling allows a judicial review challenge to proceed; it does not quash the Tribunal’s decision or determine the asylum claim.
The applicant, who said he was Sudanese and a member of the Massalite tribe from Darfur, had sought asylum in Ireland in January 2005. The Refugee Applications Commissioner recommended that he not be declared a refugee. The Tribunal affirmed that recommendation in March 2006. Its decision relied on adverse credibility findings, including concerns about his identity documents, journey to Ireland and omissions from his initial questionnaire, and referred to the possibility of relocation within Sudan.
In his judicial review application, the applicant argued that the Tribunal had not properly addressed the core of his account: that he was a non-Arab Darfuri whose village had been attacked. He relied on a medical report recording a substantial leg injury and continuing effects, and a Sudan Organisation Against Torture newsletter reporting a November 2004 attack on a village named Jenjenat. The Tribunal decision did not refer to the newsletter and gave little weight to the medical report because its wording did not follow the Istanbul Protocol’s hierarchy of assessment.
Justice Clark said the medical report could support the applicant’s account of a bayonet injury and should have been assessed with reasons. She was also concerned that the Tribunal had not explained how or why it rejected the newsletter. The judge noted spelling and translation variations in Darfuri place names and referred to United Nations reports describing late-November 2004 attacks on villages north of Tawila. She said it was arguable that names in those reports might be alternate spellings of places in the applicant’s account; she did not find that they were.
The judge considered that the Tribunal’s other credibility findings might have carried less weight if it had fully assessed the medical and village-attack material. She did not resolve every dispute about the applicant’s travel account or whether Ireland was his first safe country. She also rejected his challenge to the Tribunal’s internal-relocation assessment, which she said was based on country information properly before it at the time.
The applicant had filed about eight weeks beyond the statutory 14-day period. The court accepted that communication difficulties, a change of solicitors and delays obtaining the appeal hearing transcript provided good and sufficient reason to extend time. It then granted leave because substantial grounds had been shown to challenge the Tribunal’s decision on the identified issues.