The Court of Appeal has ordered two international protection applicants to pay the respondents' legal costs after dismissing their appeals in full.
In a supplemental judgment delivered on 9 December 2025, Mr Justice Anthony M. Collins ruled that A.A.H. and M.H.A. had not shown sufficient grounds to displace the usual rule that an entirely successful party is entitled to its costs.
The substantive appeals had been dismissed on 15 October 2025. They concerned decisions of the International Protection Appeals Tribunal and included issues arising from the possible return of the appellants to Greece.
The High Court had certified two questions of law as being of exceptional public importance, which allowed the appeals to proceed under the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000. The appellants relied heavily on that certification in asking the Court of Appeal to make no order for costs against them.
They also argued that the cases had a quasi-pathfinder character because other proceedings had effectively been paused pending the outcome, and that the court's interpretation of section 46(8) of the International Protection Act 2015 had wider systemic importance.
The Court of Appeal accepted that the certified issues were relevant to the costs decision but held that this was not enough. The appellants had gone significantly beyond those two questions and advanced eleven additional grounds of appeal.
Mr Justice Collins said substantial time and effort had been spent addressing those extra grounds, many of which repeated criticisms of the tribunal decisions that the High Court had already considered and rejected.
The court also rejected reliance on the applicants' financial circumstances as a basis for avoiding costs and said the appeals were not true pathfinder cases because international protection claims require individual assessment.
The respondents had been entirely successful. The court therefore awarded them the costs of both appeals, including costs in the cause and any previously reserved costs.