The High Court refused an asylum applicant’s request for a certificate to appeal to the Court of Appeal and declined to refer an EU-law question to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
In a judgment delivered on 27 March 2015, Mr Justice Eagar considered the application under section 5(3)(a) of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000. The applicant sought a certificate on the basis that the court’s earlier judgment involved a point of law of exceptional public importance and that an appeal was desirable in the public interest.
That earlier judgment, given on 4 February 2015, had refused judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision affirming that the applicant should not be declared a refugee. The applicant had sought to have the decision quashed and the appeal remitted for a fresh determination by a different tribunal member. The earlier case turned on the credibility of the personal history advanced as the basis for a claimed fear of persecution if returned to Nigeria.
The applicant’s submissions argued that the earlier judgment appeared to say there was no need to assess a claim objectively or consult country-of-origin information when refusal rested on credibility findings. They also argued that Irish regulations did not properly transpose an EU directive. Alternatively, the applicant asked the High Court to make a preliminary reference under Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The respondents opposed both requests.
Justice Eagar set out the applicable criteria for an appeal certificate, including that the point of law must be genuinely uncertain, arise from the court’s decision, have exceptional public importance and make an appeal desirable in the public interest. Those requirements were cumulative.
The judge said the Tribunal application was “totally unsustainable”. He noted that the applicant had applied for asylum in Austria in 2003, disappeared from the asylum register in 2007 and came to Ireland in 2009. What he had told the Austrian authorities was unknown. The judge considered the applicant’s failure to state the real basis of his case relevant to the credibility assessment.
Justice Eagar concluded that the case raised no point of law, much less one of exceptional importance, and that no European-law issue required clarification to decide the certificate application. He refused the EU reference and the appeal certificate, also finding that the matter did not have the public importance required and that certification was not appropriate in light of time or costs. The ruling addressed only the certificate and reference applications; it did not reconsider the earlier judicial-review decision.