Open justice and closed tribunals: refugee hearings and the Rule of Law
In a previous post, I considered the common law and constitutional aspects of the principle of open justice. In Wednesday’s Irish Times, Carol Coulter reported on a case in which a child asylum seeker is alleging perceptible bias on the part of a member of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal. At present, the applicant is seeking leave to bring judicial review proceedings against the rejection of her asylum application, and the leave hearing is expected in the coming months. In an accompanying story, Coulter discussed previous cases which have challenged the secrecy and perceived unfairness of the Tribunal. That reference to “secrecy” set me thinking about the principle of open justice in the context of closed tribunals, and this post is a first attempt at applying the principle in that context. In that respect, I very much welcome discussion of my analysis in the comments.
The starting point is section 19(4A) of the Refugee Act, 1996 (also here) as inserted by section 7 of the Immigration Act, 2003 (also here), which provides:
…(a) The chairperson of the Tribunal may, at his or her discretion, decide not to publish (other than to the persons referred to in section 16(17) [of the 1996 Act, also here]) a decision of the Tribunal which in his or her opinion is not of legal importance.