Refugee Appeals Tribunal to publish important decisions

The Refugee Appeals Tribunal is to publish legally significant decisions from today, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell has said.

Replying to a written question from Green Party TD John Gormley on the publication of tribunal decisions, he said he had been advised by the tribunal chairman, John Ryan, "that he attaches great importance to this matter. A committee of members is in place which has been researching best international practice and I am advised, has agreed a system of publication which is member intensive".

The Minister continued: "I am further advised that the first selection of decisions of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal to be published pursuant to section 19 (4A) (a) of the Refugee Act 1996 will be on 31st March, 2006."

Two members of the tribunal, barristers Sunniva McDonagh and Doreen Shivnan, resigned on November 22nd last, citing dissatisfaction with the way in which it was run by the chairman.

Last July the tribunal was criticised for its lack of transparency by Mr Justice John MacMenamin in the High Court. He ruled it was wrong to refuse lawyers for asylum applicants access to its previous decisions. He said this was "unique in the common law jurisdictions" and "cannot accord with the principles of natural and constitutional justice, fairness of procedure or equality of arms".

The refusal of the tribunal to publish decisions was also criticised by Ms McDonagh in the Bar Review last year where she wrote that publication "would allow for analysis as to whether any such discrepancies . . . are accounted for by the different mix of cases allocated to members or are due to other factors."

Allegations of inconsistency in decisions by the tribunal have been frequent in recent years.

Heretofore the tribunal refused to publish statistics for the decisions of different members but figures compiled by the Refugee Legal Service showed that one member, barrister James Nicholson, rejected over 95 per cent of the cases he heard.