The High Court has refused a judicial review application brought on behalf of a child whose appeal for refugee status was rejected. The child’s family had argued she could face harm in Kosovo because of an alleged blood feud involving her family and another family.
The child, identified in the judgment as K.A., was born in Cork in 2010 to Kosovan parents. Her parents had arrived in Ireland in 2008 and their own asylum claims had failed. An asylum application was made for K.A. in March 2010. The Refugee Applications Commissioner recommended that she not be granted refugee status, and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal dismissed her appeal in August 2010 after a non oral hearing.
The claim relied on the family’s account of a feud said to have lasted more than 20 years. The material before the Tribunal included accounts of a 1988 killing and an attack on K.A.’s father in 1999, as well as later threats. The Tribunal found no evidence of further attacks after 1999 and concluded the stabbing was a criminal act, not part of a blood feud giving rise to a Convention ground for refugee protection. It also found the evidence did not establish that the family would face persecution on return.
K.A.’s judicial review challenge argued, among other things, that the Tribunal had wrongly assessed whether family membership could qualify as membership of a particular social group, and had erred in considering whether Kosovo’s authorities could provide protection. The court said the Tribunal had accepted that targeting family members because of a blood feud could engage a Convention ground. But it had rejected the claim after assessing whether the evidence showed a genuine risk of retribution based on a feud.
On state protection, the court said the Tribunal had considered the history of events and information about conditions in Kosovo. The attack on K.A.’s father took place in 1999, when effective state protection was absent, but the Tribunal also considered Kosovo’s circumstances at the time of the asylum decision. The High Court found the Tribunal’s conclusion that protection was available was open to it on the evidence and was not irrational or unreasonable.
The court refused the application. It also declined to grant leave to apply for judicial review on the state protection grounds. The judgment records that substantial grounds had been established to advance the leave application on the other grounds, but concludes that the applicant had not shown the Tribunal’s decision was vitiated.