The High Court has found that Ireland’s mechanism for identifying suspected trafficking victims was inadequate in cases where the person seeking recognition is also suspected of criminal activity. The court made that finding in judicial review proceedings brought by an anonymised Vietnamese woman who was charged in connection with cannabis cultivation and possession. It did not make a final order on remedy, instead inviting further submissions from the parties.
The woman applied in December 2012 to the Chief Superintendent of the Garda National Immigration Bureau for recognition as a suspected trafficking victim. She said she had been deceived about a job in Ireland and made to work in a cannabis growhouse. Gardaí found her there during a search in November 2012. The prosecution’s case included charges relating to possession and cultivation; the claimed market value of the plants seized was €940,800. The judgment records that the criminal case had been stayed pending the judicial review.
The Chief Superintendent said no final decision had been made when the woman sought judicial review. The respondents later argued that her account was vague and inconsistent, and that information about her earlier time in Germany undermined her claim. The woman acknowledged that she had withheld her German history, saying she was scared. The court refused the respondents’ motion to set aside leave or dismiss the proceedings, finding the non-disclosure was not a sufficiently clear and compelling reason to stop the case. It also held that the woman had standing to seek proper procedures without first proving she qualified for victim status.
The judge said more than two years had passed since the application, despite the requirement for early identification. The decision-maker’s task, the court held, was not to require the applicant to prove her claim: the Directive’s “reasonable-grounds indications” test was objective and could be met by objective evidence even where an applicant’s account was unconvincing.
The court identified unresolved questions about how the identification process should interact with a criminal investigation, including whether information shared in the process could be used in the prosecution, when adverse information must be disclosed, and when reasons must be given for a negative decision. It found the existing mechanism inadequate because it did not clearly deal with those questions. The court did not determine the Director of Public Prosecutions’ position and did not rule that the woman was a trafficking victim or entitled to immunity from prosecution. It reserved the question of remedy for further submissions.