The High Court refused an application to extend an injunction that would have prevented the Refugee Appeals Tribunal from processing an asylum appeal while a separate judicial review case remained unresolved.
In a judgment delivered on 14 November 2016, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys said the applicant’s second set of judicial review proceedings was “fundamentally misconceived”. The appropriate step, he said, was to apply for a stay in the existing proceedings before the judge who had dismissed the first case.
The applicant had challenged a decision of the Refugee Applications Commissioner and argued that he should not have to appeal to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal. That first judicial review case was dismissed by Ms Justice Faherty in September 2016. An application for leave to appeal was pending.
After that decision, the Tribunal listed the applicant’s appeal for hearing on 28 September 2016. The applicant then brought a second judicial review case seeking an injunction to stop the Tribunal processing the appeal until the first proceedings were determined, as well as a declaration to that effect.
Counsel for the applicant argued that separate proceedings were needed because the Tribunal had not been a party to the first case. Justice Humphreys rejected that position, explaining that a stay in judicial review proceedings can also bind those taking consequential action on the decision under challenge. An application for a stay should therefore be made in the original proceedings, he said, rather than through a second judicial review case.
The judge noted that leave had been granted in the second proceedings and that he was considering the injunction after leave. He also said the applicant should seek a stay from Justice Faherty pending the outcome of the leave-to-appeal application, or pending an appeal if leave were granted.
The respondents’ counsel said the Tribunal was generally neutral on the application. The judgment records that the applicant’s solicitors had written that an injunction had been granted until 17 October, but that this did not appear in the order granting leave. In any event, the injunction had expired by that date, the judge said.
The court ordered that the application to extend the injunction be refused. The judgment does not determine the underlying challenge to the Commissioner’s decision or the pending leave-to-appeal application.