The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by a South African international protection applicant seeking to prevent his deportation while he challenges the rejection of his protection appeal.
Mr Justice Allen delivered judgment on 16 March 2026. The applicant, identified as N. (South Africa), arrived in Ireland in September 2022 and sought international protection.
The International Protection Appeals Tribunal accepted in August 2025 that he had suffered persecution and had a well-founded fear of persecution if returned to South Africa. However, it rejected his appeal after finding that adequate State protection was available to him there.
The applicant then began judicial review proceedings against that decision. A deportation order was made on 15 October 2025, and he sought an injunction preventing his removal until the judicial review was decided.
The High Court refused that injunction in November 2025. On appeal, Allen J found that the High Court had applied too demanding an evidential test and had also misunderstood part of the applicant’s argument concerning South Africa’s designation as a safe country of origin.
The Court of Appeal nevertheless reassessed the application and reached the same result.
The applicant said he feared further attacks by Operation Dudula and alleged that two police officers had disclosed his hiding place after an earlier xenophobic attack. The court stressed that those allegations did not establish that effective State protection was unavailable generally or to him personally. It noted that he had never sought such protection beyond his dealings with the officers concerned and that there was no evidence that Operation Dudula had pursued him or threatened his child’s mother after he left South Africa.
Allen J held that the applicant had not demonstrated a credible, evidence-based real risk of significant harm on deportation. The appeal was dismissed and the High Court order refusing the injunction was affirmed. The underlying judicial review remains unresolved.