By Aisling Byrne
The High Court has refused M.S.S. permission to appeal a ruling which upheld an International Protection Appeals Tribunal decision concerning her protection application.
Mr Justice Barry O'Donnell had rejected her substantive judicial review case on May 23, 2025. She then sought the special certificate required to appeal that decision to the Court of Appeal under the Illegal Immigrants Trafficking Act 2000.
That statutory test is restrictive. An appeal can proceed only where the High Court certifies that its decision involves a point of law of exceptional public importance and that an appeal is desirable in the public interest.
M.S.S. raised four proposed questions. One concerned whether the Tribunal, when deciding an appeal solely on written papers, had to alert an applicant before reaching a different conclusion from the first-instance decision. Another concerned whether a statement that all submissions and country information had been considered was sufficient. She also raised the circumstances requiring an oral hearing and the proper assessment of persecution and serious harm.
The underlying protection claim concerned South Africa. The applicant's core factual account had been accepted, but the Tribunal concluded that those facts did not meet the statutory thresholds for past persecution, a well-founded future fear of persecution or serious harm.
O'Donnell J held that the proposed appeal largely concerned the application of established legal principles to those particular facts.
On the papers-only issue, the judge said the Tribunal conducts a fresh, or de novo, appeal and can reach conclusions different from the first-instance decision. Here there was no new credibility dispute requiring the applicant to be consulted again.
He also found no exceptional legal uncertainty concerning oral hearings or the statutory concepts of persecution and serious harm. The country-information issue was not determinative because the Tribunal had already found that the alleged treatment did not cross the necessary harm thresholds.
The application for leave to appeal was therefore refused. The judge provisionally indicated that the respondents should receive their costs, subject to final orders.