The High Court has quashed a decision to deport T.K. to Togo, finding that the Minister for Justice gave reasons too ambiguous to explain why the return would comply with the prohibition on refoulement.
In a judgment delivered on 9 February 2011, Mr Justice Hogan said the Minister’s conclusion did not disclose why T.K.’s claim of a risk of persecution and ill-treatment on return had been rejected. The court held that the Minister was required to give reasons because the account, if believed, could engage the protection in section 5 of the Refugee Act 1996.
T.K. claimed to be from Togo and arrived in Ireland in October 2005, where he sought asylum. The asylum applications commissioner rejected his claim in December 2005, and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal upheld that decision in April 2006. Both decisions rejected his account on credibility grounds and were not challenged by judicial review.
T.K. said he feared the Togolese authorities because of his family’s opposition to the ruling regime. He claimed that after disputed presidential elections in 2005, soldiers went to his home looking for him and beat his wife and father-in-law. He said he left Togo and travelled to Ireland. These were his claims, not findings by the High Court.
Justice Hogan noted that the court was not deciding whether T.K.’s account was true. He said that, if believed, it could support a well-founded fear of persecution. The prior adverse credibility decisions did not remove the Minister’s obligation to explain the separate refoulement conclusion, the judgment said.
The Minister signed the deportation order on 20 August 2009. A file note said that, having considered the facts, repatriating T.K. to Togo would not breach section 5. Justice Hogan found that this wording, together with the order’s standard recital that section 5 had been complied with, did not reveal whether the Minister believed or disbelieved T.K.’s account or how the risk had been assessed.
Applying the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Meadows, the High Court held that the reasons were inadequate. It quashed the Minister’s deportation decision of 20 August 2009. The judgment did not decide T.K.’s asylum claim, establish that he faced persecution, or direct what decision the Minister must make next.