The High Court upheld the Refugee Applications Commissioner’s refusal to investigate an Azerbaijani couple’s applications for refugee status in Ireland, finding that they had not shown that Poland was unable to provide them with reasonable protection.
The applicants, anonymised in the judgment as Mr and Ms S, had received refugee status in Poland in April 2006. They applied for asylum in Ireland on 3 June 2007 after leaving Poland, where they said they had experienced poverty, unemployment and racism. Their Irish application described their reason for seeking asylum as “social”.
Mr S, a journalist and former editor of an opposition newspaper in Baku, said he had been assaulted, threatened and blackmailed in Azerbaijan, and that security force agents had attempted to kill him. He and his wife also alleged that they feared Azerbaijani government agents had found them in Poland. Mr S said a woman photographed them in April 2006 and that, in Warsaw in March 2007, he felt followed and recognised the driver of a prominent Azerbaijani parliamentarian.
The Refugee Applications Commissioner refused to investigate the Irish claims, on the basis that the couple had already been recognised as refugees in Poland and the Minister for Justice had no jurisdiction to grant them refugee status under section 17(4) of the Refugee Act 1996. The couple challenged that decision by judicial review.
Mr Justice Hogan said the applicants’ allegation of risk in Poland distinguished their case from an earlier case involving an applicant who had left another country for economic reasons and had not alleged fear of persecution there. But he said an allegation of fear alone was not enough. Applicants generally had to show that the country that had granted them refuge was unwilling or unable to provide reasonable protection.
The judgment noted that the couple had never sought the protection of the Polish authorities or suggested that they had asked those authorities to investigate the alleged incidents. The judge concluded that they had not shown Poland could not protect them. In those circumstances, the Commissioner was justified in refusing to investigate because the Minister had no jurisdiction to grant the requested status under section 17(4).
The court dismissed the judicial review challenge. It did not make findings that the alleged surveillance or threats occurred; it concluded that the couple had not established the required basis for claiming fear of persecution in Poland.