The High Court has refused to overturn a decision denying international protection to a Georgian man whose account of facing persecution because of his bisexuality had been accepted as credible.
Mr Justice O’Higgins delivered judgment on 5 February 2026 following a challenge to an International Protection Appeals Tribunal decision of 27 August 2024.
The applicant, identified only as A.B., sought protection in Ireland in 2022. He said he feared persecution because he is bisexual, had been assaulted at an LGBT demonstration, was involved with the Girchi political party and had been unable to publish a second book in Georgia whose main character is gay.
Both the International Protection Office and the Tribunal accepted significant parts of his case. The Tribunal found a reasonable chance that he would face future persecution in Georgia because of his membership of the social group of bisexual men and held that the usual presumption that Georgia was a safe country had been rebutted in his circumstances.
The Tribunal nevertheless refused refugee and subsidiary protection because it found that effective state protection was available.
A.B. argued that this conclusion conflicted with the Tribunal’s own findings and with country information documenting violence, discrimination and shortcomings in police protection for LGBT people. He also argued that too much weight had been placed on his failure to report incidents to police and that the refusal to publish his book had not been properly treated as possible persecution.
The High Court rejected those arguments. Mr Justice O’Higgins held that the Tribunal had considered both positive and negative country information and had recognised what it described as a mixed picture in Georgia. Its conclusion that reasonable and effective protection remained available was one it was legally entitled to reach.
The judge also held that the Tribunal could take account of A.B.’s failure to report incidents to police, provided that factor was not treated as decisive. The book-publication issue had also been considered and could rationally be found insufficiently serious to constitute persecution.
The judicial review application was therefore refused.