The High Court has quashed the part of a decision refusing permission to remain that dealt with refoulement, finding the Minister for Justice did not explain why she rejected submissions about earlier international protection findings.
The judicial review was brought by three anonymised Albanian applicants: two adults and their minor son, who sued through his father and next friend. The case concerned the Minister’s 2 March 2020 decision affirming an earlier refusal of permission to remain after a statutory review. The court granted leave to seek judicial review on the ground that the Minister had failed to give reasons for concluding that deportation would not expose the applicants to refoulement, contrary to section 50 of the International Protection Act 2015.
The applicants’ earlier refugee and subsidiary protection claims had been refused. The International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) affirmed the negative recommendations in October 2019. In submissions to the Minister, the applicants alleged that they faced danger in Albania because of a blood feud and their support for and association with the Democratic Party. They also challenged the IPAT’s assessment, including its finding that a blood feud did not exist and credibility findings against the adults. Those challenges relied on country of origin information and a note of oral evidence.
The Minister’s review decision referred to the refoulement representations and quoted country information, but did not address the applicants’ challenges to the IPAT findings. The court said the Minister could rely on earlier protection decisions and was not required to rehear the protection claim. However, when deciding whether to adopt those findings for the refoulement assessment, she had to consider relevant representations made during the review and explain her reasoning.
Justice Tara Burns found no clear path in the decision showing why the concerns about the IPAT’s findings had been rejected. She said it was unclear whether they had been considered at all, so the matter could not simply be sent back for the Minister to add reasons to the existing decision.
The court ordered certiorari of the portion of the section 49(7) review decision concerning refoulement and remitted that issue to the Minister for fresh consideration under section 50. It also awarded the applicants their costs against the Minister. The judgment did not determine whether the applicants’ allegations about the risks they faced in Albania were true.