The High Court has refused an Albanian man’s application to quash a decision rejecting his international protection appeal, and ordered him to pay the respondents’ costs, subject to agreement.
The judicial review concerned a decision by the International Protection Appeals Tribunal, which had affirmed an International Protection Officer’s refusal of the man’s claim. The man argued that the tribunal had decided the case on one issue alone—his lack of knowledge of the debt amount—or had reached an irrational conclusion by relying on that issue.
The claim was based on the man’s account that a criminal gang threatened him over gambling money allegedly owed by his father. He said his father borrowed money between 2000 and 2002 and that he learned of the debt from his mother in 2014 or 2015. He did not know how much was owed or to whom.
He told the tribunal that a man with a gun demanded payment in November 2016 while he was at college. He said he did not contact police because he believed the man might have police connections. He later received threatening calls and noticed a car following him on several occasions. He left Albania in March 2017 and arrived in Ireland on 3 April 2017, where he applied for protection.
The tribunal found that the lack of detail about both the debt and the sum demanded undermined the claim. It also considered the account of the family’s finances, why the man was pursued only years after the debt arose, why relatives remaining in Albania were said to be safe, and the alleged police connection. The tribunal accepted documents about the father’s illness and divorce for the purposes of considering the claim, but found they did not prove the alleged extortion.
In her judgment, Ms Justice Tara Burns said the claim had not been determined on a single issue. The tribunal had considered other aspects, but was entitled to conclude that it could not properly assess several of them without knowing the amount owed and demanded. The judge also held that the tribunal was entitled to consider the man’s education in assessing a claim centred on an unspecified demand, and that its conclusions about the documents and the corruption allegation were open to it on the evidence.
The court refused the relief sought. It made an order for the respondents’ costs against the applicant, to be adjudicated upon if the parties could not agree. The judgment does not state the amount of those costs.