Leave granted for judicial review where undisclosed documents caused fundamental adverse consequences without prior notice.
Ireland (IE)
Legislator summary
AI generatedThe court granted leave for judicial review regarding the Refugee Applications Commissioner's failure to disclose new adverse information to the applicant before making a decision. The applicant argued that undisclosed documents regarding his identity led to significant negative conclusions without him having a chance to respond. The judge found substantial grounds for this claim, noting that such undisclosed information should generally be put to the applicant unless exceptional circumstances exist.
Legislator headnote
AI generateds. 5 of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000; Where a decision maker obtains new information adverse to the applicant that requires specific disclosure, failure to put such information to the applicant may constitute exceptional circumstances allowing immediate judicial review without exhausting the normal appeal remedy.
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Neutral Citation [2016] IEHC 672
THE HIGH COURT
JUDICIAL REVIEW
[2016 No. 741 J.R.]
BETWEEN
B.A.
APPLICANT
AND
THE REFUGEE APPLICATIONS COMMISSIONER
RESPONDENT
JUDGMENT of Mr. Justice Richard Humphreys delivered on the 21st day of November, 2016
1. The applicant attended for interview with the Refugee Applications Commissioner in connection with his asylum claim on 9th
November, 2015. Following that interview, the commissioner made enquiries with the applicant’s bank and the Registrar of Civil
Marriages. Those enquiries suggested that the applicant was in possession of additional personal identifying documents which he
failed to disclose to the commissioner. The commissioner did not revert to the applicant for comment in relation to this new
information, and then drew very significant adverse consequences from the new information so provided.
2. The substantial grounds test applies to this leave application by virtue of s. 5 of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000, and I
have had regard to the law in relation to that test including McNamara v. An Bord Pleanála [1995] 2 I.L.R.M. 125 as approved in In re
Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Bill 1999 [2000] 2 I.R. 360 at 395.
3. I previously expressed the view in B.W. v. Refugee Appeals Tribunal (No. 2) [2015] IEHC 759 (Unreported, High Court, 27th
November, 2015) at para. 20 (v) that where a decision maker comes into possession of new information which gives rise to “a
material change, adverse to the applicant” then as a matter of generality that new information should be put. While not all failures to
put information of this kind will be fatal, in the specific circumstances of the present case, substantial grounds have been made out
for the contention that the conclusions adverse to the applicant drawn from the new information were so fundamental and significant
that the information should have been specifically put.
4. Under those circumstances, there are substantial grounds for contending that the present case is one of the exceptional
circumstances envisaged by Hedigan J. in B.N.N. v. Minister for Justice [2009] 1 I.R. 719 whereby a decision of the commissioner can
be challenged without the applicant having to exhaust the normal remedy of appeal to the tribunal.
5. Mr. Shannon Michael Haynes B.L. for the applicant also had a second point regarding the role of the panel member in the
investigation. As I have rejected the proposition that there are substantial grounds for this point in a judgment in M.Y.A., M.J., I.G.,
X.G., & F.G. v. Refugee Applications Commissioner (Unreported, High Court, 14th November, 2016), I also do so here for the same
reasons.
Order.
6. Accordingly, I will give leave to the applicant to apply for judicial review for the reliefs at para. D of the grounding statement on
the grounds at para. E (v) and (vi). Leave to pursue the remaining grounds will be refused.