The High Court refused relief in S.N.’s application for leave to seek judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting his asylum appeal. Mr Justice Eagar said S.N. had not established substantial grounds to challenge the decision and that the court’s role was not to act as an appeal against it.
The Tribunal decision, made on 17 December 2010 and communicated by letter on 7 January 2011, found that S.N. had not established a well-founded fear of persecution. S.N. sought to have it quashed and also challenged the procedures for determining asylum applications, arguing that they denied an effective remedy under an EU directive.
S.N.’s account, as set out in an affidavit, was that he converted from Sunni to Shia Islam and faced hostility from his family and extremist groups. He said a camp where he provided medical help was attacked in November 2007, his home was later attacked, and he was detained and beaten after another camp attack in February 2008. He said he escaped, moved to Rawalpindi and then Karachi, and left Pakistan after a friend’s house was attacked. He alleged that police did not adequately act on complaints about the attacks and feared persecution if returned.
The Tribunal accepted that S.N. was from Pakistan, had converted to Shia Islam and claimed to have been targeted by Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. It nevertheless found that state protection was available. It noted that an FIR had been registered and said there was no evidence that police were colluding with the perpetrators or had failed to investigate. It also questioned S.N.’s account of escaping after 15 to 20 days in detention, reasoning that the group had ample opportunity to kill him. The Tribunal further considered that he could have sought asylum in Turkey and could relocate within Pakistan, including to Karachi, where he said he had lived for about a month without harm.
Justice Eagar said the Tribunal had given reasons for its decision and that S.N. had not shown that Pakistani authorities had failed to investigate his complaints. The judgment records the Tribunal’s acknowledgment of shortcomings in Pakistan’s police system. The court did not re-decide the asylum claim; it considered whether the decision-making process was legally sound and free of material legal error or procedural injustice.
The judge also criticised the length of written submissions: S.N.’s ran to 14 pages and the respondents’ to 21, exceeding the practice direction’s stated limits. He said future submissions exceeding those limits could be replaced and, if necessary, the case adjourned.