The High Court has refused a Kosovar man permission to challenge the rejection of his international protection claim, finding that the different outcome from his mother's successful refugee application was adequately explained.
L.A., a Kosovar national of Albanian ethnicity, arrived in Ireland with his mother on October 26, 2022. Their protection claims were linked to hostility arising from his mother's bisexuality.
L.A. said neighbours had bullied and threatened him and that he had been violently assaulted after they learned about his mother's sexuality. He claimed this caused him to abandon a professional football career and said he feared being killed if returned to Kosovo.
The International Protection Appeals Tribunal accepted his identity, nationality, religion, ethnicity and his mother's bisexuality. However, it did not accept his core claim that he personally had been targeted because of his association with her, finding his account vague and insufficiently corroborated.
The same tribunal member separately allowed his mother's appeal and recommended refugee status, accepting her account of persecution and noting evidence of discrimination and inadequate protection for LGBTQ+ people in Kosovo.
L.A. argued that the two decisions were inconsistent and that the tribunal had failed to address relevant country information and his mother's successful case.
In a ruling delivered on January 29, 2026, Ms Justice Siobhán Phelan rejected those arguments. She found that the tribunal had expressly considered the mother's case and that the different results flowed from different credibility findings.
The judge also found that the country information before the tribunal documented risks faced by LGBTQ+ people themselves but did not establish a comparable risk to an adult child merely because of association with an LGBTQ+ parent.
The court held that the tribunal's reasoning was logical and coherent and that L.A. had not shown substantial grounds for judicial review. Leave was therefore refused.