The High Court has refused Mr E leave to appeal an earlier decision in his judicial review case against the Chief International Protection Officer and the Minister for Justice and Equality.
In a judgment delivered on 3 April 2019, Mr Justice Max Barrett considered Mr E’s application under section 5 of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000, as amended. The proposed appeal concerned the court’s earlier decision in *E v CIPO & anor* [2019] IEHC 39. The court said neither side objected to it deciding the leave application.
Mr E proposed two questions of law, each framed as being of exceptional public importance. The first asked whether a reasonable observer might apprehend bias if an international protection officer assessed an application while knowing highly prejudicial information but purporting to disregard it.
The judgment said the earlier case involved undisputed evidence that the Eurodac material in question was not considered and had no significance to the assessment of the protection claim. The court said a reasonable observer would know that, so the issue Mr E proposed could not arise from the earlier decision. It also noted there was no allegation of subjective bias.
The second proposed question concerned whether a respondent could rely on an affidavit sworn by someone other than the decision-maker to address an allegation of objective bias, where the affidavit described what was significant to the decision-maker. The court said there was no allegation of subjective bias requiring inquiry into the decision-maker’s actual state of mind. It also said no exceptional public importance appeared to arise from an informed official, rather than the decision-maker, giving affidavit evidence about the process. That evidence was uncontroverted, and no notice to cross-examine had been served.
The court refused leave to appeal. The judgment addressed only whether leave should be granted; it did not determine a further appeal on the proposed questions.