The High Court has refused two applicants permission to appeal an earlier judgment concerning their immigration proceedings, finding that no point of law of exceptional public importance arose from that decision.
Mr Justice Max Barrett delivered the ruling on 10 June 2021. The applications were made under section 5 of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000, which allows an appeal to the Court of Appeal only if the High Court certifies that its decision involves a point of law of exceptional public importance and that an appeal is desirable in the public interest.
The applicants, identified in the judgment as A and B, had sought leave to appeal the court’s January 2021 judgment, [2021] IEHC 25. That earlier judgment concerned proceedings about the International Protection Appeals Tribunal’s refusal to proceed with an application to extend the time for an appeal. The Tribunal had considered that an intervening decision by the Minister for Justice made an appeal against the earlier recommendation moot or futile.
In A’s application for leave, the proposed question concerned whether section 2(2) of the International Protection Act 2015 breached EU law or the right to an effective remedy by ending a person’s status as an applicant after a ministerial decision refusing international protection. A argued that this affected the Tribunal’s jurisdiction to extend the time for an appeal.
Barrett J said the proposed question put section 2(2) before the section 47 decision that, in his view, drove the sequence of events. He described section 2(2) as ancillary and found no uncertainty in the law requiring clarification. He considered the proposed point misconceived and not exceptionally important. The court also said no affirmative public benefit from an appeal had been identified.
The judge noted that A did not appear to challenge the earlier judgment’s answers to the three questions raised in those proceedings. The court had held that the Tribunal had not applied the relevant regulation, that two alleged errors therefore had not occurred, and that the regulation’s validity did not arise for determination.
Barrett J also said a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union was not necessary to decide the leave application. He refused A’s application and, for the same reasons, refused B’s application. The ruling decided only whether leave to appeal should be granted; it did not determine an appeal on the underlying immigration issues.