The Supreme Court has ruled that an international protection applicant who alleges serious procedural errors in a first-instance decision must normally use the statutory appeal process before seeking judicial review.
The appellant, identified as AB, is a Georgian national who applied for international protection in Ireland in 2022. He claimed that he had been persecuted after reporting alleged electoral wrongdoing while acting as an election observer in Georgia in 2021.
His first application was rejected. He was later permitted to make a subsequent application after producing additional evidence, including material which the International Protection Appeals Tribunal said could require earlier documentary evidence to be reconsidered.
When the International Protection Office rejected the renewed application, AB alleged that significant evidence had not been assessed and that no finding had been made on a core part of his claim concerning his role as an election observer and an alleged subsequent attack.
AB lodged an appeal to the Tribunal but also sought judicial review in the High Court. The High Court refused leave, and the Supreme Court has now upheld that outcome.
Ms Justice Donnelly held that the Tribunal provides a full and effective appeal capable of examining evidence afresh, including material that may not have been properly considered at first instance. The court accepted for the purpose of the appeal that AB’s allegations of procedural failure were serious, but found they amounted to alleged defects in his individual case rather than a fundamental failure of the protection system.
The Supreme Court held that judicial review remains available despite an alternative remedy only in exceptional circumstances. Where fair procedures are alleged to have been breached, the defect must amount to a fundamental denial of justice — for example, where the supposed hearing cannot realistically be regarded as a hearing at all or a fundamental procedural requirement has been ignored.
AB’s complaints did not reach that threshold. His appeal was dismissed, leaving his international protection appeal to be determined by the Tribunal.