The High Court awarded costs to the Minister for Justice and Equality after the applicants were unsuccessful on all points of their challenge to the Minister’s decision. The ruling addressed costs only; the court said the appeal certification had already been granted and costs were the sole outstanding issue before it.
Mr Justice Eagar said the usual rule was that costs follow the event, while the court retained discretion to depart from that rule where the interests of justice required it. Any departure had to be supported by reasons tied to the circumstances of the case, he said, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision in *Dominic Dunne v Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government* [2008] 2 IR 775.
For the applicants, Peter Leonard BL relied on a December 2015 High Court judgment in *R.A. v Refugee Appeals Tribunal* [2015] IEHC 830. In that case, Humphreys J had awarded costs to an unsuccessful applicant and described public-interest cases as falling along a spectrum, with unique exceptionality not required in every case to depart from the usual rule.
Justice Eagar said that certification under section 5 of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000, which permits an appeal where a case raises a point of exceptional public importance, did not itself show that the costs rule should be displaced. He considered that awarding costs to an unsuccessful applicant in a certified refugee case could imply that certification alone justified a departure, which he said was inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s approach requiring relevant factors to be identified in the circumstances of the particular case.
The court therefore ordered the applicants to pay the Minister’s costs. Justice Eagar added that if his decision on costs was wrong, the Court of Appeal would deal with the issue.