Decision to refuse refugee status may be challenged

AN ETHNIC Serbian man who fled the war in the former Yugoslavia with his wife, an ethnic Croat, has secured leave from the High Court to bring a judicial review challenge to a decision refusing them refugee status here.

Mr Justice Daniel Herbert ruled the couple had shown the substantial grounds necessary for leave for judicial review of decisions of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal of September 2008 refusing them refugee status.

The judge noted the couple married in December 1989 and, because of the fighting between Croats and Serbs in the “terrible and unfortunate war” which followed the dissolution of former Yugoslavia, they had to flee their home in Croatia in December 1991 and seek safety in a Serbian controlled enclave.

In 1998, they sought refugee status in Serbia and remained there until March 2005 when they came to Ireland and sought asylum. They claimed they would be persecuted if they returned to Croatia because the husband was an ethnic Serb.

After their appeals against refusal of asylum were rejected in September 2008, they sought judicial review.

Yesterday, Mr Justice Herbert found they had shown substantial grounds for contending the appeals tribunal member had erred in law in concluding that facts found by her about the situation in Croatia did not amount to “persecution” within the meaning of the relevant provisions of the Refugee Act 1996 and the European Communities (Eligibility for Protection) Regulations 2007.

The judge stressed he was not expressing a view as to whether the tribunal member was correct or not in her conclusion.

The judge also accepted arguments the tribunal member had failed, in her decision on the couple’s case, to mention or address three previous decisions of other tribunal members which had all recommended other persons be granted refugee status on grounds they had established a well-founded fear of persecution in Croatia because they were an ethnic Serb and ethnic Croat married to each other.

He found the absence in her decision on the couple’s case of any reference to those decisions was sufficient evidence to show they were overlooked.