The High Court refused an applicant leave to seek judicial review of the Minister for Justice and Equality’s refusal to revoke a deportation order. The court held that the applicant had not shown a flaw in how the Minister considered his revocation application. It did not decide a fresh asylum claim or whether the applicant would face danger if returned to Bangladesh.
The applicant, born in Bangladesh in 1988, said he feared returning because his family had been persecuted in their home village and Buddhists faced discrimination and persecution. He went to Thailand in 2004 to become a Buddhist monk. Earlier asylum and subsidiary protection applications had been refused, and a deportation order was made.
In proceedings challenging the deportation order and the subsidiary protection refusal, the applicant relied on reports of attacks on Buddhists in Bangladesh in September and October 2012. At a hearing in October 2012, the judge said he could not consider those events when assessing the legality of decisions made without that information. He adjourned the case so the applicant could raise the new material with State authorities, without directing what application to make.
The applicant applied under section 3(11) of the Refugee Act 1996 to have the deportation order revoked. The Minister refused on 20 November 2012. A separate challenge to that refusal followed. At the joint hearing in April 2013, the original proceedings were struck out by consent, with no order as to costs. The only issue left was the challenge to the refusal to revoke the deportation order.
The applicant argued that the Minister’s decision was irrational because it relied on country information describing deficiencies in the Bangladeshi police. He also said extensive new information about violence against Buddhists had not been considered, and that the Minister should have re-investigated his account of violence against his family in 2009.
The court said the Minister’s examination acknowledged police defects and recent attacks, while also recording police reform and arrests of members of a group said to be involved in anti-Buddhist violence. The judge found that the submitted and official country information had been considered faithfully. A decision-maker did not have to reproduce or paraphrase every source in the decision, the court said, and the material allowed the Minister to conclude that Bangladeshi authorities were serious about combating the violence.
The judge also said the European Court of Justice decision cited by the applicant concerned asylum and protection assessments, while the case before him concerned only the legality of the refusal to revoke a deportation order. He found no sustainable case of irrationality or other flaw in the Minister’s handling of the application and refused leave to seek judicial review.