The High Court has ordered a fresh international protection appeal for a Georgian woman after finding that her personal history of serious domestic violence was not adequately considered when assessing whether the Georgian authorities could protect her.
Mr Justice Cian Ferriter on July 30 quashed a July 2024 decision of the International Protection Appeals Tribunal and directed that the woman's appeal be reconsidered by a different tribunal.
The applicant, identified only as S.V., was born in 1979 and left Georgia in May 2021. She told protection authorities that her husband had subjected her to years of physical and psychological abuse and that she had been hospitalised three times during the final five years of their relationship. She later went to Germany before arriving in Ireland on May 25, 2022.
Her account of domestic violence was accepted as credible. The Tribunal also accepted that she faced a reasonable chance of persecution if returned to Georgia, but refused refugee status and subsidiary protection after deciding that state protection was available.
The Tribunal relied partly on evidence of improvements in Georgia's response to domestic violence and on the fact that her husband had previously been detained for 15 days.
However, Mr Justice Ferriter found that its assessment did not properly engage with the full circumstances relied upon by S.V. She had said that her husband was never charged or convicted, became more aggressive after his detention and continued abusing her despite her reports to police.
The judge said international protection law requires an individual assessment of whether state protection would be effective and accessible in the applicant's particular circumstances. Given the potentially serious consequences for her safety, he found she was entitled to a lawful reassessment.
The ruling does not decide that S.V. qualifies for refugee status or subsidiary protection. A different Tribunal must now reconsider her appeal, including whether Georgian state protection would in fact be available to her individually.