The High Court has refused the State respondents’ application to certify two proposed legal questions for appeal to the Court of Appeal in an asylum judicial review case.
Mr Justice Max Barrett delivered the ruling on 30 January 2025. The application concerned the statutory test under section 5(6)(a) of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000, which requires a point of law of exceptional public importance and that an appeal be desirable in the public interest.
The underlying dispute had already been decided against the respondents in a 2024 judgment, [2024] IEHC 551. That judgment followed a 2023 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), after the High Court had referred questions to it in 2021. The present application sought certification to appeal the High Court’s 2024 application of the CJEU ruling.
The respondents proposed questions about the threshold for certiorari following an alleged breach of the duty of cooperation under section 28 of the International Protection Act 2015, and about what an applicant must show when delay by the International Protection Appeals Tribunal may have affected a decision.
Justice Barrett said neither question arose from his 2024 judgment. In his view, they concerned the CJEU’s ruling, which could not be appealed. He also said the law was clear following that ruling and that the respondents had not established either statutory requirement for certification. He declined to make a further reference to the CJEU, reasoning that the existing ruling was clear, binding and applicable.
The judge considered principles from earlier High Court cases on certification. He said that even if the proposed points met the exceptional-public-importance threshold, he could not find that an appeal would be desirable in the public interest given the CJEU’s analysis and the clarity it had brought to the law. He also noted that the application had not been used simply to reargue the merits of the underlying case.
The court refused the certification application. The ruling addresses permission to appeal the 2024 High Court judgment; it does not revisit or alter the outcome of the underlying asylum dispute.