Refusal to adjourn Refugee Appeals Tribunal hearing to find suitable interpreter breached fair procedures

Judicial review – Albanian national challenging decision of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal to refuse him refugee status – claimed that his family were involved in a blood feud and he feared for his life – fled to Ireland by way of France and Italy - claimed that Tribunal erred in refusing an adjournment to remedy interpretation difficulties – at the hearing, he indicated to the Tribunal member that he could not understand his interpreter well as he spoke a different dialect – applied to adjourn the hearing on the basis that any misunderstanding in interpretation would give rise to prejudice – Tribunal member refused the application to adjourn the hearing - during the course of the hearing, difficulties in relation to interpretation manifested themselves - Tribunal refused all applications for an adjournment - evidence of hearing unchallenged - ability of an applicant to understand the proceedings and to be understood during the proceedings is a basic requirement of fairness of procedures – general principles in relation to the issue of interpreters and the fairness of proceedings - the Tribunal was under a duty to act judicially in determining whether or not to grant an adjournment to the applicant – Tribunal member's made an adverse credibility finding in relation to the Albanian national's lack of knowledge of the name of the family in which his family was in a blood due to the difficulties which arose in interpretation - Tribunal placed reliance on a fundamental error of fact in the credibility assessment – Albanian national submitted at the hearing an untranslated birth certificate – Tribunal member did not accept this as an identity document and made adverse credibility findings on the absence of identity documents – whether the Tribunal erred in failing to consider relevant evident in the form of the birth certificate – argued that the Tribunal was under a duty to translate the document - Tribunal Member was entitled to draw an adverse inference from the fact that the applicant produced an untranslated copy of his birth certificate at the hearing – Tribunal found that this was not a dispute which could be characterised as a blood feud – Albanian national argued that this finding was formulated on the basis of the difficulties in interpretation – whether the Tribunal acted in breach of fair procedures by failing to draw the attention of the applicant and his legal advisers to its view that the dispute was not one which could be characterised as a blood feud at all - requirement on a member of the Tribunal to put matters of concern and/or perceived discrepancy to an applicant and give them an opportunity of dealing with them - role of the Tribunal Member to assess the evidence and reach a decision – conflicting country of origin information in relation to the absence or presence of state protection against blood feuds – Albanian national argued that the Tribunal ignored the country of origin information which supported his case that state protection was not available – no reason offered as to why certain country of origin information was accepted over another piece of evidence – error was made in the translation of his brother's date of birth - Tribunal member made an adverse credibility on the basis of this error – Tribunal member did not put the Albanian national on notice of the error – whether the Tribunal erred in failing to consider an explanation given for a material discrepancy in evidence given in relation to relocation – whether the Tribunal member failed to consider country of origin information on the effectiveness of reconciliation between feuding families – Albanian national argued that the Tribunal's credibility findings were based on speculation and conjecture – whether the Tribunal member was entitled on the evidence to make a negative credibility finding on the basis that he did not apply for asylum in France.