A (A) v Refugee Appeals Tribunal and Others

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Mr. Justice Cooke
• Judgment Date: 04 February 2009
• Neutral Citation: [2009] IEHC 71
• Docket Number: [No. J.R. 353/2007]
• Court: High Court
• Date: 04 February 2009

[2009] IEHC 71

THE HIGH COURT

[No. J.R. 353/2007]

A (A) v Refugee Appeals Tribunal & Ors

BETWEEN/

A.A

APPLICANT

AND

REFUGEE APPEALS TRIBUNAL, THE MINISTER FOR JUSTICE, EQUALITY AND LAW REFORM, THE ATTORNEY GENERAL AND IRELAND

RESPONDENTS

IMMIGRATION

Asylum

Judicial review - Leave - Well founded fear of persecution - Country of origin information - Whether tribunal erred in law in failing to assess evidence and information available - Reasonable likelihood of persecution for Convention reason - Standard of proof - Whether conclusions irrational or manifestly unreasonable - Relief refused (2007/353JR - Cooke J - 4/2/2009) [2009] IEHC 71

A(A) v Refugee Appeals Tribunal

Mr. Justice Cooke

1 The applicant came to Ireland from Afghanistan and claimed asylum here in 2006. The decision of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal of 8th March 2007, ("the Contested Decision",) refused his claim for refugee status and confirmed the earlier report and recommendation of the Refugee Applications Commissioner. While the personal history of the applicant which forms the basis of his claimed refugee status is almost entirely based on his own evidence, uncorroborated by any personal identification documents, in the absence of any express findings of negative credibility in the Contested Decision, this court must proceed on the basis that the following facts are established; 1) he is a member of the Hazara tribe or ethnic group; 2) he earned his live living in Afghanistan before flight by selling arms, an activity which is illegal in that country; 3) he was arrested and detained for a day for that activity and was beaten while in detention; and 4) he escaped by bribing his way out of prison and fled. He now claims to fear that if he was returned he might face persecution and might be summarily executed.

2 The extensive grounds set out in the statement of grounds have been helpfully reduced at the hearing to two and can be stated in slightly larger terms than they are put in the remaining paragraphs in question as follows; ground No. 2 can be articulated to this effect:

• - that the Tribunal erred in law in failing to assess the evidence and information available to it as to the basis of the applicant's claim to a well founded fear of persecution on return to Afghanistan by reason of his Hazara ethnicity;

3 The ground given as No. 3 can be said to be:

• - that the Tribunal member in finding, in effect, that the evidence did not establish that there was a reasonable likelihood of that persecution for a convention reason, applied a wrong lest.

4 To put that first and principal ground more precisely, the essential flaw alleged in the Contested Decision is that it does not explicitly mention or make any finding in respect of the claimed basis of the applicant's fear of persecution, namely, that as a known arms dealer previously detained, he will, if returned to Afghanistan and rearrested, suffer persecution in a form of mistreatment over and above the uniformly bad treatment meted out to all prisoners because he is a Hazara. It is true that this precise...