The High Court has awarded the State respondents their costs, including any reserved costs, in a judicial review concerning an applicant’s transfer from Ireland to France under the Dublin III Regulation. The costs are to be assessed by the Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicator if the parties cannot agree.
In a ruling delivered on 30 October 2024, Mr Justice Conleth Bradley refused the applicant’s request that each side bear its own costs. The judge said the State respondents had been entirely successful in the judicial review, and found no basis to depart from the usual position that costs follow the event.
The substantive judicial review had challenged the transfer decision and the refusal of discretionary relief under the Dublin III Regulation. The applicant also sought declarations about an alleged failure to obtain and convey a health certificate before the transfer, and an order directing the Minister to accept him back under Article 29(3). The court had refused those forms of relief in its earlier judgment. Injunctive relief had previously been refused by Ms Justice Hyland.
For the applicant, counsel submitted that each party should bear its own costs because the case raised novel issues and served the public interest. These included the procedure for exchanging health information under Articles 31 and 32, whether an official could make an Article 17 decision under the Carltona principle, and when a transferred applicant could be returned under Article 29(3).
The State respondents argued that the issues were not sufficiently important to justify departing from the ordinary costs rule.
The earlier judgment considered the applicant’s claim that his health had worsened before his transfer on 13 February 2024. A second medical report, dated 30 January 2024, described suicidal ideation at the prospect of return to France, compared with a first report dated 16 April 2023. The court accepted that the applicant had experienced trauma and mental health issues, but concluded that the evidence did not meet the required threshold for exceptional circumstances or establish a real and proven risk that the transfer would expose him to inhuman or degrading treatment linked to serious deterioration in his health.
On the Carltona argument, the costs ruling said the decision had been made by a departmental official, Mr Dineen, on behalf of the Minister for Justice, rather than by the International Protection Office. The judge concluded that this point, along with the other issues raised, did not justify a different costs order.