The High Court refused leave to challenge the refusal of subsidiary protection and a deportation order made against an Iraqi applicant, finding that he had not met the threshold for either challenge. The decisions were made in March 2010; the judgment was delivered on 24 March 2011.
The applicant, who described himself as an Iraqi Kurd, had arrived in Ireland in March 2005 and had been refused asylum. He later applied for humanitarian leave to remain and subsidiary protection. His asylum claim had alleged a threat from members of an unnamed armed Islamic group, who he said suspected his brother had caused associates to be arrested. The brother had previously obtained refugee status in Ireland.
The applicant argued that the procedures leading to the two decisions were unfair, including because the Minister’s officials relied on country information without first sharing it with him for comment. He also challenged the assessment of the risks in Iraq and the possibility of relocating within the country. The court rejected the procedural arguments, finding no general obligation to disclose publicly available country reports or invite comment on them. It held that the relevant EU directive did not require dialogue about country-of-origin information.
The judgment noted that the applicant had submitted 2007 UNHCR guidance, but that it had been superseded by updated 2009 guidance. The Minister’s officials had also considered UK Home Office reports from 2009. The judge found that the selection and use of the material supported the conclusions reached, including that Kirkuk was unstable but the Kurdistan Regional Government area was relatively more stable. The submissions had also considered the practical difficulties of entering that area and the possibility of access by air through Sulaymaniyah.
The court applied the “substantial grounds” test to the challenge to the deportation order. It considered that an arguable-ground threshold applied to the subsidiary protection challenge, which it found was not covered by the statutory restricted-review provision. The judge declined to refer questions to the European Court of Justice at this stage.
This was a leave application, not a full hearing deciding whether the underlying administrative decisions were correct. The court refused leave in both matters, concluding that neither threshold had been met.