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High Court makes an order quashing a decision refusing the applicant either a refugee declaration or subsidiary protection declaration, on the grounds that: (a) it was not clear that a proper consideration of the medico-legal report would have made no difference in arriving at conclusions both as to the occurrence of abuse and the applicant's credibility; and (b) it did not appear that a threshold had been reached whereby it could be concluded that the balance of the evidence was so overwhelmingly or cumulatively in favour of a finding of a lack of credibility that a proper consideration of the medico-legal report could not change the outcome.
High Court - judicial review - immigration and asylum law - whether the first respondent failed to properly weigh and consider a medical report submitted in evidence on behalf of the applicant in arriving at a decision on appeal that the applicant's claim for international protection lacked credibility - applicant was a young muslim man from Sierra Leone - made claim for international protection in February 2019 on the basis that if he returned he would face prosecution and/or suffer serious harm - claimed to have been tortured along with his father both before and after national elections in March 2018 - applicant alleged his father had died by reason of the trauma and injury inflicted upon him and submitted a death certificate in evidence - application refused at first instance by International Protection Office - IPO considered account of the beatings to not be credible - SPIRASI Report completed by a GP - concluded that the applicant had psychological symptoms that were in keeping with his account of trauma - legal principles - what emerged from the authorities cited was that there was a requirement to consider the medico-legal evidence in arriving at findings of credibility whether the evidence is of low or high probative value - language used confirmed that the medico-legal report was not weighed in evidence in determining whether the applicant was subjected to the treatment he complained of - first respondent formed a definite view of credibility first without reference to the medical evidence and then asked whether that view should be shifted by reference to the medical evidence - could not be concluded that the error in the approach to the medico-legal evidence did not undermine the decision - court not satisfied, in view of the nature of the findings made in the decision, that properly weighed this evidence could make no difference to the outcome - order of certiorari made quashing the decision of the first respondent
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