The High Court has dismissed R.C. (Algeria)’s judicial review challenge to an International Protection Appeals Tribunal decision refusing his appeal for subsidiary protection.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys held that the tribunal’s decision was “intelligent, coherent, reasonable and lawful”. The order dismisses the proceedings; the judgment does not grant the primary relief sought, which was an order quashing the tribunal decision.
R.C. said he was attacked in Algeria in March 2010 after trying to stop an attack on his brother, who he said was in a relationship with a Berber woman. He left Algeria in November 2012 using his own passport and a tourist visa, travelled through Spain, France and Belgium, and arrived in Ireland on 7 April 2014. He applied for asylum two days later. His asylum application was refused by the Refugee Applications Commissioner and on appeal by the Refugee Appeals Tribunal.
He later applied for subsidiary protection. The International Protection Office refused that application in a letter dated 28 March 2017. The tribunal rejected his appeal on 26 September 2017. The High Court granted leave for judicial review on 16 October 2017. The only grounds pursued at the hearing challenged the tribunal’s consideration of risk to failed asylum seekers returning to Algeria and its treatment of an earlier tribunal decision.
On the return-risk issue, R.C. argued that the authorities in countries of origin may receive the files of failed asylum seekers. The judge noted that no evidence had been provided to support that allegation. He said it was legitimate for the tribunal to take account of the practice that Irish authorities do not disclose a deportee’s status as a failed asylum seeker, and referred to section 26 of the International Protection Act 2015.
The court also considered country information and a private academic report submitted to the tribunal. The judge said the report did not support a general risk of detention or violence for this applicant, who the tribunal assessed would return with no known profile and be of no interest to the authorities. He concluded that the tribunal had given sufficient reasons and that its decision was not irrational on the information before it.
R.C. also argued that the tribunal had improperly distinguished an earlier decision. The judge said tribunal decisions do not bind one another as precedent and that the earlier decision had not been put before the High Court. Its absence, he held, prevented the court from granting relief on that ground. The proceedings were dismissed.