THE HIGH Court has ruled as unsafe a decision by the Refugee Appeals Tribunal rejecting an asylum application from a Congolese teacher who claimed he faced political persecution back home.
The teacher, who was active in a school strike in his home country in February 2005, succeeded in judicial review proceedings chalenging a tribunal decision rejecting as implausible his claims that he faces persecution due to his activism against the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) .
The man, a married father of three, claims he had to leave the DRC after he took part in a public demonstration organised by the country's political opposition in the capital Kinshasa on June 30th 2005. Afterwards, government troops came looking for him at this home.
He fled to a province in the Congo where he stayed for 10 days and learned that his uncle, a teacher with the same name, had been arrested.
The applicant said this convinced him he had to leave the DRC. Some priests arranged his flight to Ireland and provided him with a false French passport. He eventually made it to Ireland, via France, in September 2005.
He applied for asylum and was refused by the Refugee Applications Commissioner.
That refusal was upheld by the tribunal.
In its decision, the tribunal said it did not consider it plausible the teacher would be targeted "over and above" other members of his trade union, especially as the strike was settled and senior leaders had been released by the authorities.
The tribunal also found it implausible that the authorities would have arrested his uncle by mistake and that the teacher would have been able to travel on a false passport.
In his High Court action, the man argued the tribunal based its decision on incorrect information.
Mr Justice Bryan McMahon yesterday found that the tribunal's decision was unsafe because of significant errors of fact.
The teacher's explanations about the mistaken identity arrest of his uncle were "reasonable and plausible" and deserved "proper and more careful consideration," the judge said.
The tribunal should have put its reservations about the mistaken identity issue more explicitly to the teacher to give him an opportunity to explain before deciding to reject his appeal, Mr Justice McMahon added.