By Aisling Byrne
The High Court has refused a Somali man's application for permission to bring a judicial review challenge to a ministerial decision clearing the way for his return to Somalia.
The applicant, identified as M.Y.M., arrived in Ireland in January 2022 and applied for international protection the following month. He said he feared harm arising from clan-based hostility, indiscriminate violence and wider conflict in Somalia. He is from the Gabooye tribe and Madhiban clan and came from Hargeisa in Somaliland.
The International Protection Office recommended refusal of refugee status and subsidiary protection in November 2024. The International Protection Appeals Tribunal later upheld that recommendation. Both bodies considered the risk of serious harm from indiscriminate violence, including the protection available under Article 15(c) of the EU Qualification Directive. Neither decision was challenged in court.
The Minister subsequently refused permission to remain on 7 May 2025. A separate non-refoulement decision followed, finding no barrier to returning the applicant to Somalia. Non-refoulement is the rule preventing a person being sent to a territory where specified serious threats to life, freedom or physical integrity arise.
The applicant argued that the Minister was required to carry out a fresh Article 15(c) assessment at that stage, including consideration of his minority-clan status and country information about violence in Somalia. He also complained that he had not been given a further opportunity to comment on a US State Department report.
Phelan J rejected those arguments at the leave stage. She held that Article 15(c) requires such risk to be assessed during the protection process, but not repeatedly at every later stage where no new information has been produced.
The court also rejected a parallel argument that the Minister had to repeat an Article 8 ECHR proportionality assessment already undertaken in the permission-to-remain process.
Finding no reasonable or weighty legal basis for the challenge, the judge refused leave to seek judicial review.