Justice Department’s ‘pitiless’ approach to woman like Animal Farm dictator - judge

The Department of Justice’s approach to a Georgian woman seeking to stay in Ireland was like that of the pig dictator Napoleon, the “pitiless protagonist” in George Orwell’s classic novel Animal Farm, a High Court judge has said.

The woman came here from Georgia 11 years ago on a false EU passport.

When seeking protection in 2015 under her true identity, she claimed she had been badly beaten by government agents as a result of her work as a political journalist in Georgia.

She was refused protection or leave to remain.

In a judgment published this week, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys quashed the International Protection Appeals Tribunal’s rejection of her appeal over being refused protection and directed the matter be reconsidered by a different tribunal.

While the Department’s refusal of leave to remain was not at issue in this case, that decision was “particularly unimpressive”, he said.

It had held the applicant’s previous false identity “strongly” against her but failed to acknowledge the “very considerable” difference between the vast majority of immigration frauds detected by or on behalf of the authorities and the small minority of cases where the person concerned voluntarily comes clean.

No credit whatsoever was given to the woman “for having freely and voluntarily come forward”.

He referred to a scene in Animal Farm where Napoleon [the pig based on Soviet leader Joseph Stalin who emerges as leader of the animals after they take control of the farm] has four pigs seized and calls upon them “to confess their crimes”.

Having done so, they and other confessing animals were “slain on the spot”.

Like Orwell’s “pitiless protagonist”, the Department had “not altogether appreciated the potential distinction between visiting stern consequences on wrongdoing that officialdom has uncovered, and humanely affording at least some credit in the case of undiscovered wrongdoing that a person voluntarily discloses themselves”.

The woman faces deportation as a next step if her protection claim is not accepted, he said.

“One wonders in passing where is the incentive for people to tell the truth under such a regime.”

The woman had said she came here in August 2008 ago on a false EU passport, having fled Georgia after being badly beaten by government agents as a result of her work. She set out details of her facial injuries, stating her nose was broken, she had to have nose and eye surgery and has no sight in one eye.

She added: “I miss my parents and my daughter [A] who was eight when I left her.”

She remained here for almost seven years before seeking to regularise her status.

She said she eventually found confidence to disclose her true identity and applied for asylum in May 2015 under her true identity.

In May 2018 her protection claim, and separate application for permission to remain under section 49 of the International Protection Act 2015, were refused.

Mr Justice Humphreys said the IPAT refusal of her appeal was based on “perverse and irrational” findings by the tribunal member concerning her credibility.

It was “simply absurd” for the tribunal to find her newspaper staff card was not reliable for reasons including it lacked the security features of documents like a passport.

Work documents generally do not contain such features and the tribunal also failed to acknowledge the staff card is in a form “not easily falsifiable”, he said.

An adverse credibility finding arising out of the woman’s delay in claiming asylum was also “a departure from the correct reasoning process” in a context where the applicant simply decided to come forward herself with her true identity.

The rejection of her claim to have been a journalist also required some acknowledgment of the additional evidence potentially significantly supportive of that, he held.

The fact she had “outed” herself despite having lived perfectly happily under a false EU identity speaks to a degree of confidence in her own case and “certainly reinforces the credibility of her asylum claim on any reasonable view”.

That was not factored in either by IPAT or the Department in refusing leave to remain, he said.