The High Court has dismissed a judicial review challenge to the International Protection Appeals Tribunal’s decision affirming the transfer of an international protection application to Sweden. The court held that the State’s late notification of the tribunal’s designation to the European Commission did not invalidate the decision made on the appeal.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as T.T., applied for international protection in Sweden in June 2019. His application there was rejected, and leave to appeal was refused in March 2022. He applied in Ireland on 26 January 2023. A fingerprint search produced a match with Sweden, which accepted Ireland’s request to take back the application.
The International Protection Office notified the applicant on 19 May 2023 that Ireland would not examine his application and that it would be transferred to Sweden. He appealed to IPAT. Following a hearing in September 2023, the tribunal decided on 21 February 2024 that the request to Sweden was in order under the Dublin III Regulation.
The applicant did not challenge the tribunal’s assessment of the transfer on its merits. He argued instead that the Regulation did not govern his case because Ireland had not notified the Commission of IPAT’s designation as a competent authority until December 2023, after he had lodged his appeal. IPAT had been designated under Irish law in March 2018. The Commission’s consolidated list naming IPAT was published in March 2024, after the tribunal’s decision.
Justice Garrett Simons held that the key date for IPAT’s jurisdiction was the date it decided the appeal. By then, the State had notified the Commission. The later publication of the consolidated list was not a prerequisite to an effective designation, the judge said, because the Regulation allows the list to be updated annually.
The judge also addressed the wider legal arguments, noting that the delay could affect other cases. He concluded that designation was a matter for Member States under domestic law, while notification served purposes including transparency, Commission monitoring and secure data exchange. The applicant had not complained about data sharing. The court did not find that the late notification made the Dublin III Regulation inapplicable.
A separate argument about IPAT members’ training was not allowed to proceed: the judge said it fell outside the ground on which leave for judicial review had been granted and the State had not had an opportunity to provide evidence on it. The court did not decide the State’s estoppel objection, though the judge said that, if required, he would probably have resolved it in the applicant’s favour.
The application for judicial review was dismissed in its entirety. The Minister was released from an undertaking not to execute the transfer order while the proceedings were pending. The judge’s provisional view was that each side should bear its own costs; either side could seek to have costs relisted if it wanted a different order.