A.S. v International Protection Appeals Tribunal
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Judge | Ms. Justice Siobhán Phelan |
| Judgment Date | 02 February 2023 |
| Neutral Citation | [2023] IEHC 53 |
| Court | High Court |
| Docket Number | [Record No. 2021/1040JR] |
[2023] IEHC 53
[Record No. 2021/1040JR]
THE HIGH COURT
JUDICIAL REVIEW
Judicial review – International protection – Credibility – Applicant seeking judicial review – Whether the first respondent failed to properly weigh and consider a medical report submitted in evidence on behalf of the applicant in arriving at the decision that the applicant’s claim for international protection lacked credibility
Facts: The applicant made a claim for international protection in February, 2019 on the basis that if returned to Sierra Leone, he would face persecution and/or suffer serious harm. The applicant’s claim was assessed pursuant to the International Protection Act 2015. His application was refused at first instance by the International Protection Office (the IPO). The applicant lodged an appeal against the decision of the IPO and submitted medical evidence in the form of a SPIRASI report dated the 20th May, 2021 in support of that appeal. The appeal was declined following an oral hearing by decision dated the 9th of November, 2021. The applicant challenged that decision. In the written legal submissions submitted on behalf of the applicant, the application for judicial review was described as being based solely upon the manner in which the medical evidence was considered by the first respondent, the International Protection Appeals Tribunal. The applicant said that the medical evidence, being an expert report, was of probative value and was required to be considered as part of the assessment of the claim in the round. It was complained that the first respondent compartmentalized the medical report and did not consider its probative value in establishing both the applicant’s claim to have been subjected to torture or ill-treatment and in assessing his credibility. In response, the respondents contended that the medical report of the 20th May, 2021, was taken into account in the text of the decision of the 9th November, 2021. The respondents relied on the overall structure of the impugned decision in which the first respondent analysed the overall credibility of the applicant’s claim in its component parts by addressing those component parts sequentially in the light of his own narrative and its internal coherence and referred to the SPIRASI report in the context of that analysis which the respondents contended showed that proper regard was had to that report.
Held by the High Court (Phelan J) that the first respondent attached no weight to the SPIRASI report in arriving at findings as to the occurrence of incidents of torture or ill-treatment but addressed it only having already reached adverse credibility findings in relation to those events without reference to the contents of the report. Phelan J noted that, having already reached an adverse conclusion as to the applicant’s general credibility in relation to the claim advanced, the first respondent then discounted the SPIRASI report because it was otherwise dependent on the applicant’s credibility in the account given, in circumstances where the findings contained in the report were not weighed as part of the evidence relevant to establishing the applicant’s credibility in the account he gave and his injuries as documented in the report were not considered at all in deciding whether the assaults he described might have happened. Phelan J could not conclude that the error in the approach to the medico-legal evidence did not undermine the decision. She was not satisfied, in view of the nature of the findings made in the decision, that properly weighing that evidence could make no difference to the outcome.
Phelan J proposed making an order of certiorari quashing the decision of the first respondent made on the 9th November, 2021 to affirm the recommendation of the IPO that the applicant be given neither refugee declaration nor subsidiary protection declaration.
Application granted.
JUDGMENT OF Ms. Justice Siobhán Phelan, delivered on the 2 nd day of February, 2023
. These proceedings turn on the net issue of whether the First Respondent failed to properly weigh and consider a SPIRASI medical report submitted in evidence on behalf of the Applicant in arriving at the Decision on appeal that the Applicant's claim for international protection lacked credibility.
. The Applicant is a young Muslim man of Temne ethnicity from Sierra Leone. He made a claim for international protection in February, 2019 on the basis that if returned to Sierra Leone, he would face persecution and/or suffer serious harm. The Applicant states that he was a prominent youth leader in the All People's Congress [hereinafter the “APC”] party and was intimidated and tortured both before and after the national elections in Sierra Leone in or about March, 2018. He claims that in February, 2018 he and his father, both known locally for their political involvement with the APC, were targeted by members of the rival Sierra Leone People's Party [hereinafter the “SLPP”] who ransacked their family home, abducting both father and son and subjecting them to torture, releasing the Applicant's father after one day. The Applicant claims that he kept a mobile phone concealed on his person throughout this time and managed to escape on the second day by breaking down a door which was not in good condition.
. As a result of the events in February, 2018, the Applicant claims that he spent a significant period of time in hiding at an aunt's house for fear of further persecution. In December, 2018 he came out of hiding to attend a political demonstration with his APC colleagues. He claims that the demonstrators were assaulted and beaten by a mob of SLPP supporters at this political demonstration. He claims that he sustained fractures in the ring fingers of both hands during this violent assault, in which other friends and family members were abducted.
. Following the demonstration, the Applicant claims that he was forced back into hiding and learned from radio reports that friends and family members were subjected to a ritualistic induction to a secretive West African Society known as the Poro Society.
. The Applicant refers to the subsequent death of his father which he believes was caused by the trauma and injury inflicted upon him when he was abducted in February, 2018 and he submits his father's death certificate in evidence. The death certificate records the cause of death as hyperextension and a cerebrovascular accident.
. Following his application for international protection in the State in February, 2019, the Applicant's claim was assessed pursuant to the International Protection Act, 2015 [hereinafter “the 2015 Act”]. His application was refused at first instance by the International Protection Office [hereinafter “the IPO”].
. In the report prepared pursuant to s. 39 of the 2015 Act, the IPO noted that it had been put to the Applicant that had he been tortured in the manner in which he claimed to have been, he would have had more injuries than bruises to his arms. The IPO considered that the Applicant's account of the beatings he had endured and the resultant injuries did not appear to be credible as the injuries he claimed to have sustained were limited to cuts and bruises to his forearms even though the beating described had been vicious wherein the Applicant claims to have been kicked and slapped in the face by twenty men. The IPO concluded with regard to the claimed abduction in February, 2018 as follows:
“When the Applicant's explanation in relation to the place he was allegedly taken to by his captors, the timing of same, his description of the beatings and resultant injuries, his escape and his mobile phone are all considered together when analyzing this material fact, the account of his abduction, torture and escape is not found to be credible and is rejected on the balance of probabilities.”
. The Applicant's claim to have been involved in a demonstration in December, 2018 was also found to be lacking in credibility by the IPO following analysis.
. Further, it was not accepted that the Applicant's father died as a result of his ordeal when abducted, particularly as his death certificate identified natural causes of death indicating that the Applicant's father died as a result of a stroke due to underlying health conditions.
. The Applicant lodged an appeal against the decision of the IPO to refuse to recommend protection to the First Respondent and submitted medical evidence in the form of a SPIRASI report dated the 20 th of May, 2021 in support of that appeal.
. The appeal was declined following an oral hearing by decision dated the 9 th of November, 2021. It is the decision to refuse the appeal that is the subject of challenge in these proceedings.
. The Istanbul Protocol Manual on Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment (United Nations, 2004) is published by the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (“UNHCR”) and is recognised as setting the international standard of investigating and documenting torture. Paragraph 187 of the Istanbul Protocol provides:
“The following discussion is not meant to be an exhaustive discussion of all forms of torture, but it is intended to describe in more detail the medical aspects of many of the more common forms of torture. For each lesion and for the overall pattern of lesions, the physician should indicate the degree of consistency between it and the attribution given by the patient. The following terms are generally used:
(a) Not consistent: the lesion could not have been caused by the trauma described;
(b) Consistent...
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