The High Court has upheld a decision refusing international protection to a Georgian national who said he faced persecution because he is a Jehovah's Witness.
In a judgment delivered on 18 November 2025, Mr Justice Barry O'Donnell rejected G.G.'s challenge to the International Protection Appeals Tribunal's refusal of refugee status and subsidiary protection.
The Tribunal had accepted significant parts of G.G.'s account. It found that he had been assaulted because of his religious beliefs, that those incidents amounted to persecution and that he faced a future risk if returned to Georgia. The dispute centred instead on whether the Georgian state could provide effective protection.
G.G. described two assaults which resulted in hospital treatment, in May 2022 and April 2023, as well as a separate incident in which his father allegedly threatened him with a knife. He arrived in Ireland on 20 May 2023 and applied for international protection two days later.
The Tribunal considered several country reports concerning religious minorities in Georgia. An earlier 2022 Freedom House report had stated that religious minorities were insufficiently protected by the state, while the updated 2023 report omitted that wording. The Tribunal concluded, after considering the wider country information, that effective and non-temporary state protection was available.
The High Court found that approach rational. It rejected G.G.'s argument that the Tribunal had effectively based its decision on the omission of a single sentence from the newer report.
The court also held that G.G. had received the benefit of the statutory presumption arising from his past persecution and that the Tribunal had properly applied the rules governing applicants from designated safe countries.
The judicial review application was therefore refused. The respondents were provisionally entitled to their costs, with final orders and costs to be addressed at a later hearing.