The Supreme Court allowed the Minister’s appeal in a long-running challenge to the refusal of subsidiary protection to an anonymised Rwandan applicant. It set aside the High Court order quashing the Minister’s decision and dismissed the application for judicial review.
The applicant came to Ireland in 2006 for postgraduate law studies. After his student visa expired, he sought refugee status, saying his work in Rwanda’s Office of the Military Prosecutor had put him at risk. The Refugee Appeals Tribunal rejected that application in December 2008 on general credibility grounds. That decision was not challenged by judicial review.
The applicant then applied for subsidiary protection. The Minister refused the application in a decision dated 24 September 2009, relying in part on the earlier asylum assessment and finding that the applicant had not established a real risk of serious harm if returned to Rwanda. The judgment later refers to the decision as dated 24 September 2010; it does not explain the discrepancy.
The applicant sought judicial review. After referring a question to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the High Court quashed the Minister’s decision in January 2013. It considered that the applicant should have a fresh opportunity to address the protection claim and adverse credibility findings, with a fresh assessment of his credibility.
The Minister appealed and the applicant cross-appealed. The Supreme Court made a further reference to the CJEU, which ruled in February 2017 that EU law does not generally require an interview or an opportunity to call or cross-examine witnesses in a separate subsidiary protection procedure. An interview must be arranged where specific circumstances make it necessary for the authority to assess the application with full knowledge of the facts.
Applying that ruling, the Supreme Court said a written procedure was sufficient in this case because the subsidiary protection submission relied only on matters already advanced in the asylum claim. It also held that the Minister could take account of information gathered in the asylum process. The Court found no basis for requiring an oral or adversarial hearing on the circumstances before it.
The Court’s decision resolved the appeal and the procedural challenge to the Minister’s decision. It did not determine any later protection application or the applicant’s circumstances at the time of the judgment; the judgment noted that circumstances had changed and might need to be considered in further decision-making.