The High Court dismissed an asylum applicant’s application for leave to appeal a decision refusing to quash the refusal of his asylum claim. Mr Justice Richard Humphreys ruled on the application’s merits and did not decide the consequences of its having been filed out of time.
The underlying judicial review decision, delivered on 8 March 2018, had refused certiorari of a decision by the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT). In that substantive judgment, the court had rejected the applicant’s challenge. The present application sought leave to appeal that decision and relied on new authorities and points that had not been raised at the original hearing.
The judge considered five proposed questions. He held that the first two, concerning alleged conflicts in case law and principles in an earlier Refugee Appeals Tribunal case, could not properly be introduced at the leave stage because those authorities had not been cited in the applicant’s written submissions for the substantive hearing. He also said the second question was not a ground for leave because the judgment had not referred to that case.
The third question asked what weight should be given to medical reports where credibility is disputed. The judge said the answer depended on the individual case, making it unsuitable for leave to appeal. He noted that IPAT had considered the applicant’s medical report, which referred to signs of PTSD and numbing, and was entitled to assess it alongside the other evidence.
A fourth proposed question relied on a High Court decision the applicant had cited originally. The judge said the issue had since been addressed by a Court of Appeal decision. He also declined to grant leave based on another authority that had not featured in the original submissions. The fifth question, about the weight of unauthenticated documents, was also fact-specific and unsuitable for certification.
The judge said the applicant’s credibility had been undermined for reasons set out in the substantive judgment. He also found that an alleged death certificate concerning the applicant’s father was unsatisfactory: it was produced late, and the applicant could not explain who supplied the registration information or how he obtained the document. The court said it did not overcome the broader credibility problems.
The court was notified of the intention to seek leave on 30 April 2018, after the judgment had been delivered and the order perfected on 8 March. The judge said the application was out of time under the relevant High Court practice direction, but found it unnecessary to decide the consequences because he dismissed it on its merits.