The High Court has dismissed a judicial review challenge by an anonymised Albanian applicant to the refusal of his subsidiary protection appeal by the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT).
In a judgment delivered on 14 December 2018, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys rejected six grounds of challenge. The order dismisses the proceedings; it does not grant the applicant the certiorari relief he sought against the tribunal’s decision of 9 March 2018.
The applicant, born in Albania in 1997, said he faced serious harm because of a blood feud in which he claimed his uncle and cousin were killed. He arrived in Ireland in October 2014, aged 17, and applied for asylum the following day. An initial asylum refusal rejected his credibility, while the Refugee Appeals Tribunal dismissed his appeal in November 2016 on internal-relocation grounds while accepting his credibility. His later subsidiary protection application was recommended for refusal in 2017 on the basis that his account was credible but internal protection was available.
The dispute before the High Court concerned IPAT’s later rejection of his credibility. The tribunal had considered whether death certificates for his uncle and cousin could be obtained. The applicant said his mother had tried to obtain them but was not a blood relative; he had not asked his uncles to do so. The court held that IPAT was entitled to consider the absence of certificates, the lack of an explained effort to involve the uncles, and the failure to seek more time after the hearing to obtain documents. It also found the tribunal’s view that the Albanian civil registration system could make the certificates accessible was open to it on the material before it.
The applicant’s barrister also raised fair-procedure concerns about the death-certificate issue. The judge said those arguments were not included in the grounds on which leave for judicial review had been granted, and so could not support relief. He noted that the applicant could have sought permission to provide further information after the hearing.
The court rejected the remaining arguments, including that IPAT had breached section 28(7) of the International Protection Act 2015 by rejecting credibility without documentary evidence, failed to account for the applicant’s status as an unaccompanied minor when he applied, or failed to consider earlier decisions. The judge said the tribunal knew of his minor status and that the appeal was a rehearing in which favourable earlier findings could be revisited.
The proceedings were dismissed.