The High Court has dismissed a judicial review application challenging the refusal of subsidiary protection to a Zimbabwean woman and her younger daughter. Mr Justice Richard Humphreys ruled that the International Protection Appeals Tribunal was entitled to reject the mother’s credibility. The court did not quash the tribunal’s decision.
The mother had claimed membership of the Movement for Democratic Change and said she was kidnapped, raped, tortured and threatened by members of ZANU-PF. She said her brother-in-law, also an MDC member, had been persecuted and killed for political reasons. These were claims described in the judgment, not findings by the High Court.
She arrived in Ireland in November 2013 with her younger child and sought asylum. Her asylum claim and subsequent appeals were rejected on credibility grounds. Subsidiary protection was also refused, and the tribunal rejected an appeal on 6 February 2017. The judicial review sought certiorari to quash that decision.
The applicants argued that the tribunal had not properly assessed a SPIRASI medical report, had made unlawful credibility findings, failed to consider relevant matters and the risk of persecution, and did not assess the child’s claim separately. The judge found no basis to overturn the tribunal on those grounds.
The court said the medical reports were consistent with the mother’s account of ill-treatment but did not provide evidence of rape or sexual assault. The tribunal’s assessment was open to it, the judge held; a medical report did not require a protection claim to succeed.
On credibility, the judgment highlighted differences concerning a family reunification application made by the woman’s brother in 2013. The mother had said she did not know of the application, while the form referred to her views and suggested contact had taken place. Her brother’s 2016 letter said he had applied without her knowledge. The judge noted that the brother was not called to testify, and concluded the tribunal could reject the mother’s account. The judgment also referred to the passport issue, an MDC membership card and her failure to seek protection in countries she had passed through.
The judge said the tribunal had considered the risk claim and that the applicants had not provided evidence to show its account of what arose at the hearing about the daughter’s claim was wrong. The application was dismissed.