The High Court has refused an Albanian man’s application for judicial review of a decision denying him international protection, finding no legal error in the International Protection Appeals Tribunal’s assessment that state protection would be available if he returned to Albania.
The Tribunal had accepted that the applicant faced a real risk of serious harm, but refused subsidiary protection because it found adequate state protection available. The applicant argued that the Tribunal could not find a real risk of serious harm and then reject protection on that basis. He also said it had failed to apply the statutory presumption arising from past harm and had not properly assessed whether Albania was safe in his particular circumstances.
The account before the Tribunal was that, after a business dispute in Albania in 2017, the applicant received daily threatening calls from associates of a businessman who accused him of taking missing money. The applicant said he feared reporting the threats to police and left Albania in June 2018. The Tribunal accepted the material facts, including that the applicant had been threatened and that the businessman was convicted of murdering the applicant’s boss. It found a reasonable chance of future harm and substantial grounds for believing the applicant faced a real risk of serious harm if returned.
Justice Siobhán Phelan held that risk of harm and the availability of state protection are distinct elements of the protection test. A finding of risk did not itself establish entitlement to protection. The court also rejected the argument that the Tribunal failed to give effect to the statutory presumption: it had found a future risk based on past events, so the claim had not failed for lack of proof of risk.
On state protection, the court said the Tribunal had considered country information describing both problems in Albania’s police and justice system and measures addressing them. It had also considered the applicant’s circumstances, including that he had not reported the threats and that Albanian authorities had arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned the businessman. The Tribunal’s reference to Albania’s safe-country designation was part of a broader assessment and did not replace consideration of the evidence, the court found.
The court concluded that no error of law had been established and refused the relief sought. It also found no proper basis for a preliminary reference to the European Court of Justice. The judgment concerns the legality of the Tribunal’s decision; it does not grant protection to the applicant.