The High Court has refused judicial review applications by two people whose late appeals against international protection recommendations were rejected by the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT). Mr Justice Max Barrett declined all relief sought, including orders to quash the IPAT decisions and deportation orders.
The two applicants, anonymised in the judgment as A and B, had asked IPAT to extend the time to appeal recommendations that they should receive neither refugee status nor subsidiary protection. In each case, the Minister had already acted on the recommendation under section 47 of the International Protection Act 2015 before the late appeal was submitted.
IPAT said the recommendations had been superseded by the ministerial decisions, leaving no recommendation against which to appeal. The court agreed that IPAT had refused to proceed because an appeal would be futile. It therefore found that IPAT had not applied the regulation 4(5) test for extending the appeal period. The court said the applicants’ challenges to how that test was applied failed for that reason; it did not determine whether the regulation was invalid, because IPAT had not relied on it.
The court also held that A had ceased to be an “applicant” under the 2015 Act by the time he sought an extension, making him ineligible to apply under regulation 4(5). It said his proceedings also amounted to an impermissible collateral attack seeking to reopen an appeal route that he had not used before the Minister’s decision.
A, a Georgian national, said he did not receive the recommendation and had difficulty obtaining legal aid. The court noted that he had presented to the International Protection Office in May 2018, received information about free legal aid the following month, and applied for it in July 2019. The judgment records a dispute about whether an IPO official called him in May 2019 to confirm his address: an internal memorandum said the call occurred, while A denied receiving it. The court also said A had not adequately explained why he missed earlier postal notifications.
B, a Brazilian national, presented to the IPO in June 2018 and sought legal aid after the deadline to appeal had passed. The judgment says the same core reasoning applied to her case.
The court did not consider the European Convention on Human Rights issues raised. Its order was limited to refusing the relief sought in both applications; it did not decide the merits of either person’s underlying protection claim.