A MAN who was once the mayor of a city in Ethiopia and sought asylum here after being invited to a conference by South Dublin County Council has secured leave to bring a High Court challenge to a refusal to grant him refugee status.
Mr Justice Gerard Hogan yesterday granted permission to bring the challenge to Daniel Mulugeta Bedane, a former mayor of Butajira, a city with a population of 40,000 in southeast Ethiopia.
Mr Bedane was invited by the council to attend a conference on corporate governance in March 2006 following a visit the previous year by council representatives to Butajira concerning potential development of a partnership with an African local authority.
Mr Bedane was a member of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front which held elections in May 2005, the results of which were disputed.
Mr Bedane claimed that before coming to Ireland he was harassed by the authorities following the results of those elections. It was also argued the very fact of seeking asylum changed his circumstances and put him at risk of persecution if returned.
The refugee appeals tribunal rejected both arguments.
Yesterday, Mr Justice Hogan agreed the tribunal was entitled to reach the conclusion Mr Bedane’s claims of harassment by the Ethiopian authorities did not seem plausible because they continued to pay him as mayor of Butajira.
However, the judge disagreed with the finding he was not entitled to be granted refugee status because of the manner in which he made the asylum application. This case was reminiscent of “a cold war-style defection from a Soviet bloc” country and there were hundreds of examples during that period of politicians, diplomats, scientists, artists and athletes who gave up a privileged existence in an oppressive society to seek asylum in the West, he said.
Such defections were often to the “utter dismay” of family and friends left behind and examples include the footballer Ferenc Puskas, tennis player Martina Navratilova and the conductor Maxim Shostakovich, the judge said. While accepting Mr Bedane’s position was a relatively low level one, his asylum application had clearly embarrassed the Ethiopian regime. The judge granted leave for judicial review.